


like falling in love with a landslide

by coalitiongirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - The Queen's Thief Fusion, Arranged Marriage, F/F, but really just an FTL AU no need for any other knowledge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-14 01:33:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 47,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9150928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coalitiongirl/pseuds/coalitiongirl
Summary: Henry is nineteen, a guard in Queen Regina's castle, and in deep trouble after a hostile encounter with the queen's reviled new wife. But instead of executing him, Queen Emma takes him on as a personal guard, and Henry soon discovers more about his past, family, and his two queens than he'd have ever imagined.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> idk an abatnoir but i'm dedicating this to her anyway for basically keeping me alive for the past couple of months, and also for reading attolia and loving it as much as i do. <3
> 
> I've played a bit with family relationships in this and some differences in age. Regina and Emma are approximately the same age, and Leopold is Snow's uncle instead of her father. This is outsider POV, which means not many SQ scenes in the first chapter, but I promise they increase more and more until you'll be sick of them by the end LMAO. 
> 
> Seven chapters! I'll update weekly. :)

_“He was in love,” the king explained._  
_“With whom?” Attolia asked._  
_The king laughed. “You.”_  
_“That is ridiculous,” she said._  
_The king agreed. “Like falling in love with a landslide. Only you could fail to notice.”_

_-Megan Whalen Turner, The King of Attolia_

* * *

 

 

There are no words for how incontrovertibly _fucked_ Henry is right now.

****

He wants to drag his feet, but _no_ , he has to comport himself with discipline, he’s an officer in the Queen’s Army– at least for the next ten minutes, before Queen Regina arrives and hears what he’s done. At best, he’ll be dishonorably discharged from her service and be without a home or future. At worst, his tenure in the army will end with a quick, public execution.

****

When he thinks about the queen gazing down at him, her eyes cast in stone and fury as they are for the most despicable of traitors, he thinks that the latter might be the merciful ending for him, after all.

****

“Think you could march a little sharper?” comes the amused voice from beside him, the new bane of his existence. The queen– the _other_ queen, the queen who is no queen at all but a cruel joke to mock the kingdom and Queen Regina herself– pats his shoulder and says, “Mulan isn’t here. You can slouch on my watch.” Queen Emma winks at him and he recoils, his hands balling up into fists before he forces them to relax. With his luck, someone will perceive this as another threat to the new queen and he won’t even get to be executed with dignity.

****

There is _nothing_ dignified about this queen. Henry marches forward, back ramrod-straight and hands at his side, and Queen Emma saunters after him with her thumbs hooked into the waist of her trousers and her slouch firmly in place.

****

They reach the Council room and Henry stands, his jaw clenching as Queen Emma fiddles with a concealed cabinet and produces a bottle of clear liquid. "Drink,” she says, pouring him a glass. He’s already drunk too much today, but there’s no way, short of more overt treason, to refuse her. He drinks as she throws her own drink back, careless and _common_. “Where is your family from?”

****

“I don’t have family,” Henry says, gulping down the rest of his drink. The queen refills his glass, her own face unreadable. “I grew up in the castle.”

****

“Hm,” Queen Emma quirks an eyebrow. “You didn’t give Cora a dressing down in the middle of the castle courtyard, too, did you?”

****

_Cora_ , she says, as though they’d been acquaintances. Henry knows their new queen’s past as well as anyone else, how she’d found her royal parents mere years before the travesty that had been the Queens’ Wedding. _Henry_ is more familiar with royal culture than she is.

****

“Queen Cora was a _queen_ ,” he says hotly. He shouldn’t have taken that drink, or the second. He can feel anger beginning to fuzz at his thoughts again, making him reckless and too loud. Queen Cora may have been a queen, but she’d been a cruel one, and Henry had hidden in shadows when she’d been near. “You aren’t even queenly!”

****

“Is that supposed to be an insult?” Queen Emma says, tilting her head, and Henry can’t tell if it’s a genuine question or not.

****

He seethes, still so _angry_ about this farce that has consumed the palace and the kingdom. Queen Emma turns, reaching under another cabinet and emerging with a second bottle, and he bursts out, “You don’t– don’t you know _anything_ about the kingdom? You don’t have a drink with a guard who’s–” He stops, horrified at the idea of another repeat of what had gone on outside.

****

“No, do go on,” Queen Emma says, draping herself onto a chair. It isn’t even _hers_ , one of the two royal chairs set at the head of the table, and she sits with one knee up and the other foot resting on the next chair. Henry stares, aghast. “You did so well earlier, recounting all the ways at which I’ve been failing most grievously.” She says it with an affected tone, one just similar enough to Cora’s that Henry looks at her askance as she ticks them off on her fingers. “Atrocious etiquette, no sense of politics, no dignity or composure, and I dress like a man. _Utterly_ unworthy of your queen.” Her eyes flicker but give no hint of her thoughts. “Was there anything else?”

****

Henry stays silent, fists clenched again, and the queen has just turned around when words fly from his mouth, unbidden. “A treaty could have been made without marriage!”

****

Queen Emma turns, her eyebrows raised. “Is that so? Who told you that?”

****

“Everyone knows it,” Henry says hastily. Everyone _does_ now, if only because Zelena has made sure that it’s common knowledge in the castle. “A treaty could have been made without marriage, but the White Kingdom was _determined_ to humiliate us, and–” He falls silent again, regaining control too late.

****

It had been years of bitter battle since Queen Snow had declared war on Queen Regina over the fate of her late uncle Leopold. For a long time, it had seemed as though neither queen would settle for less than utter destruction of the other, and the armies had been locked in bitter rivalry. Then the Princess Emma had arrived at the encampment and there had been secret negotiations and, finally, a treaty and an engagement.

****

The kingdom had been horrified. Queen Regina, never one to seek counsel from her disloyal barons, had continued on. Henry, only eighteen, had been a new recruit who hadn’t fought in more than a few skirmishes, but he remembers after. He remembers Queen Regina with her head held high as she’d stood at an altar with her white-faced wife. They had danced at the wedding with stiff movements and hundreds of hostile– or worse, _mocking_ – eyes on them, and Queen Regina had flushed often and looked even more disdainful than usual.

****

And from then, it had gone from bad to worse. Queen Emma had been as much a laughingstock in the castle as she’d been at her wedding, and Queen Regina’s enemies are as delighted by this humiliation as her loyal subjects are infuriated by it. There had been no greater revenge from the Whites than this prodigal daughter, cast into Queen Regina’s orbit to undermine her.

****

“How odd,” says a silky voice behind him, and Henry feels nausea rise in his throat as he whirls around and attempts to bow at the same time, falling flat on his face instead. “That this rumor has spread through the ranks of my guard.” Queen Regina strides into the room, her hands resting on the back of her chair and her eyes raised at Henry as he lies on the ground, afraid to look up and meet her eyes.

****

Henry had been less than a day old when he’d been tucked into a basket and left at the entrance to the Queen’s Garden. The newly-minted heir, a seventeen-year-old princess, had been the first to stumble upon him that morning.

****

Queen Cora had been dismissive. "You have matters of more import than a foundling," she'd snarled, but Princess Regina had been implacable, and Henry had been passed into the capable hands of kitchen workers and healers, maids and palace attendants who'd raised him as a child of the castle.

****

Henry has no memories of the princess in his childhood, just castle walls and faces that fade in and out of his memory and are sometimes not quite right. Only two years later, she'd been carved to regal stone by her mother and betrothed to a king thrice her age in the White Kingdom. She'd departed the palace soon after and Henry hadn't seen her again until she'd returned after her husband's mysterious death seven years later and seized the mantle of Queen from her mother.

****

She'd stood still and tall, cast a regal eye about the throne room, and invited all who didn't accept her rule to challenge it. One man had moved forward and her guard had put an arrow through him. Henry, quivering behind a tapestry, had thought for a moment that her eyes had landed on him, but they'd slid onward a moment later and she'd strode from the room, fearsome queen of her father's kingdom.  

****

And now she stands before him again, eyes flashing as she regards him and no recognition in her glare. “This is the guard who _rebuked_ you?” Whatever her feelings on her unwilling marriage, Queen Regina has shown no tolerance for disrespect to the throne, and Henry keeps his head down and shakes.

****

“Thoroughly,” Queen Emma says, sounding very unbothered about it. “He told me I was unqueenly. Can you imagine?”

****

“Hardly,” Queen Regina says dryly, and Henry cringes. “You may rise.”

****

Henry’s legs are still buckling as he stands, and he still can’t meet her gaze. Queen Emma says, “He must really like _you_ ,” and Queen Regina shoots her a quelling glare.

****

Fine lips press together and Henry thinks he must be imagining the disappointment written across her features, the reluctance to speak to him. No, Queen Regina has always dealt with discord in one way and one way only. A queen ruling alone in a country that perpetually seeks to overthrow her can’t afford weakness. Any sign of treason is rewarded with a quick execution and bodies hanging outside the city walls, and Henry knows better than to expect special treatment.

****

He waits for the command, lifting his face to try to meet his end with courage, and Queen Regina inhales, long and slow, and says, “You–” before she’s cut off, almost casually, by her wife.

****

“It was quite the humiliation,” she says, and Henry wants to scream. Of course, she’s going to make this even worse. Of course, Queen Emma has no understanding of this kingdom or her wife. And Henry’s fate will be a little more ignominious, his last attempt at dignity erased. “All those guards standing there, snickering in agreement.” Queen Regina freezes, her head moving almost mechanically so she’s facing Queen Emma. “Mulan just a few feet away, hiding a smile.”

****

Henry’s eyes widen in alarm. Queen Regina says, her voice low and dangerous, “Mulan was present for this.”

****

“Well, of course,” Queen Emma says, clearly enjoying herself. “She is Henry’s captain.” Henry starts. She hadn’t asked his name. He can’t imagine why she’d know it. “Smirking as he detailed exactly how unworthy of you I am. I suppose her commitment to supporting your guard is to be commended.”

****

“Our guard,” Queen Regina corrects her stiffly.

****

“Your guard,” Queen Emma repeats, smiling an odd smile that Queen Regina doesn’t return.

****

“She didn’t hear any of it!” Henry bursts out, suddenly afraid. To be executed for treason is one thing, but he won’t be the vehicle by which one of Queen Regina’s most loyal subjects is executed as well. Queen Regina is standing taller now, her eyes narrowed as she contemplates her choices for them both. “She didn’t _know_ , I swear–”

****

“She knew,” Queen Emma says, and Henry clenches his fists against his side and glares at her, furious. She meets his gaze calmly. “She was close enough to hear every single word.” She enunciates each word with clarity, _every. single. word._ In one fell swoop, she’s going to do more damage to the queen than a decade of battling the Whites had before now, and she can only smile that damned smug smile as Queen Regina glowers helplessly.

****

It’s unforgivable, and Queen Emma must know it. Henry waits with bated breath, and Queen Regina exhales and says, “You are a blight unto my kingdom.” But she’s sighing, the words with less venom than resignation.

****

Queen Emma’s lips curl upward. “You are the moon itself,” she says in response, whatever the insult there incomprehensible to Henry’s ears, and Henry loathes the smile on her face instead as Queen Regina’s eyes flicker and close.

****

“And you are the queen,” Queen Regina says with finality. “Go. Rule.” She nods to Henry, and Henry is certainly searching for what doesn’t exist when he sees relief on her face. “This guard is under your purview now. I have no time for these petty quibbles.” She sweeps out of the room as quickly as she’d entered, leaving behind only the scent of perfume and disdain.

****

Queen Emma laughs as she goes, the mocking sounds of the White Kingdom ringing behind her. She seems unbothered by her failed attempt to have the captain of the queen’s guard destroyed, only delighted at having provoked the queen. It’s so familiar that it has Henry gritting his teeth again, awaiting whatever humiliation she has in store for him.

****

Presently, she turns and winks at him– _winks_ , as though they’re conspirators here. “She’s very fond of Mulan,” she says, propping herself up to consider him.

****

The wine and the encounter with the queen’s distaste for Queen Emma make him bold. “She’d never execute her,” he says, whirling around to face Queen Emma properly. “No matter what you say.”

****

“Is that what you think is going on?” Queen Emma asks, amused. “Very well. Your life is in my hands, Henry.” His name again, a strange bit of knowledge for an insouciant queen who’d never looked at him twice before today.

****

And she’s right, in this case, and he can only meet her eyes and wait for the blow.

****

She ponders for a moment, her fingers playing with the material of her trousers, and then she says, “Take the rest of the day off. You’ll meet me tomorrow morning in my chambers.” The missive is delivered lazily, her eyes already on the bottle in front of them. Henry stares, stricken. Is he to be an attendant instead of a soldier, alive only by the grace of a queen he loathes?

****

So it seems. “Go ahead,” Queen Emma says in dismissal, and he turns and leaves unsteadily.

 **_  
_ ** He looks back at her as he closes the door and sees that she’s staring out the window, her eyes tired and her back straight as it hadn’t been when she’d spoken to him or her wife.

 

* * *

 

 

Henry hadn’t always wanted to be a guard. He’d spent his adolescence running through the royal library, studying every book and dreaming about becoming a scribe someday. He’d been a storyteller, whispering legends in the quiet alcoves to visiting children and writing his own crude attempts at stories under the library keeper’s watch.

Then the White Kingdom had declared war and more and more of his companions had vanished to the battlefield, and Henry had imagined becoming a warrior instead, a hero who’d protect the kingdom he’s loved all his life. He’d distinguished himself in battle and been brought into the palace guard for it, and he’d stopped seeing a future in the library and lingered in the barracks instead.

Today, though, he goes to the library, desperate for the warm familiarity and quiet. He passes three of his fellow guards along the way, and each laughs and claps him on the back. “I can’t believe you survived that,” Hansel says frankly, but he’s laughing, too. “Putting the queen in her place!”

Henry is celebrated as a hero now, but it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He _had_ screwed up, he knows it, and he’d been spared only by the will of an enigmatic queen. He’d committed _treason_ , but the castle hates Queen Emma enough to call it a win.

It’s a relief to make it into the library, to duck into a back room and find Belle smiling warmly at him. If she knows about the incident in the castle courtyard, she doesn’t mention it. “It’s good to see you here, Henry.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” he says, and bites his lip as she waits for his request. “Do you have...is there anything on the White Kingdom here?”

“Quite a bit,” she says, and there’s a flicker in her eye that might be indication that she _has_ heard. “Anything in particular?” She moves to a shelf without waiting for a response, and a book is laid in his hands. _A History of the White Kingdom_ , it reads, and there’s a note on it that indicates that it’s been recently updated.

He sits at a table and flips through it, finding the brief mentions through the years to the prodigal princess. _A foundling child_ , the description reads, and Henry squirms with uncomfortable recognition. Princess Emma hadn’t been a runaway or a switched baby. She’d disappeared from the Princess Snow’s arms almost the moment she’d been born, cursed by a witch who’d been spurned by King Leopold, and lived on her own without family for decades until she’d found her parents again. She’d lived in _Queen Regina’s_ kingdom for quite some time, the book says, and Henry is startled at that revelation.

The book doesn’t offer many details about how the reunion had happened. No one seems to know much about it, and there’ve been many rumors that Queen Emma is, in fact, only a con artist and not the White princess at all. But Queen Snow and King David had embraced her as their child without question, and two years later, had married her to Queen Regina.

Queen Regina had sworn once never to take a husband, as the story goes. And she’d kept that promise, though the alternative has been far more of a headache than anyone could have anticipated. Queen Emma doesn’t fit in in this kingdom, isn’t wanted by _anyone_ , much less the queen herself, and every day she stumbles through ruling is another unpleasant humiliation to the crown.

“She doesn’t _belong_ here,” he grumbles to himself. “Why would she want to be here at all?”

Belle, passing by, says, “I can’t imagine she does,” and Henry blinks at her, his mind working furiously.

Why _would_ she want to be here? She has no allies in the castle. Even the ambassador from the White Kingdom has kept a discreet distance from her since the wedding and coronation, and the wedding itself had been a farce, everyone knows that. Everyone also knows about the variety of attacks, each more vicious than the next, designed to remind Queen Emma just how little she belongs.

_Pranks_ , Zelena likes to call them. Zelena has an agenda of her own, certainly, as Queen Regina’s bastard sister. Rumor has it that they’d once been the closest of sisters, before their two older brothers and heirs had died within a month of each other and Princess Regina had been named heir to the throne. Now, Zelena is famous within the palace for her seething resentment of her sister, and it’s a testament to Queen Regina’s patience that she has never removed her from their childhood home.

The only person Zelena seems to hate more than her sister is the new queen, and she’d been assigned to the prominent and ill-advised role of her chief attendant. And incidents have abounded since. Queen Emma’s bed, filled with snakes; hunting dogs set free in the middle of the courtyard; sand, sprinkled on the food on her plate every day. Zelena swans about the barracks cackling about Queen Emma’s stupidity as every attempt fails.

The snakes, there had been no discussion of. Henry had been in the courtyard when the dogs had been set loose and seen Queen Emma reach out to a slavering hunting dog and scratch its ears and rub its neck, leaving the dog and her attendants both perplexed. Queen Emma still gobbles down her sandy food without any decorum as though she’s never eaten before in her life. She’d never said a word to Queen Regina about any of the pranks, and speculation abounds as to whether it’s because of the sheer humiliation that accompanies a so-debased queen or because she’s simply too ignorant to understand that she’s under attack.

Henry wonders, though, because the queen he’d sat with in the Council had been anything but oblivious. Her attempts to remove a rival had been hamfisted, perhaps, but there had been a calmness to her that had bespoken an awareness beyond what Zelena seems to think of her.

Short of the humiliation of their kingdom, what does Queen Emma gain from this rule? She seems to have little interest in ruling, and it seems a grim future indeed, to spent an entire life consigned to punishing a kingdom that doesn’t want her.

And they _don’t_. Henry doesn’t, even if she had spared his life. It’s just odd, that’s all.

He closes the book with finality and passes it back to Belle. The other guards don’t need to see him reading histories in the barracks. He’d gotten enough grief just for being a castle brat in the first place.

But when he returns to barracks, it’s to whooping and cheering, claps on the back and more approval than he’d ever gotten in his life. “No one thought you’d survive that,” Hansel says again, laughing, an arm swinging around his shoulders. “Telling the queen what’s what! I’d wager she didn’t even know she was being insulted.”

“Does she ever?” It’s Zelena, lounging on a seat in the communal barracks with a stiff-backed Mulan beside her. “Our simpleton of a queen,” she drawls. Mulan’s brow knits with displeasure. “I hear you’re to be her babysitter from here on out, boy.”

“Henry, with me,” Mulan says sharply, and Henry is pulled from a conversation he has no idea how to respond to to follow the Captain of the Guard, who fixes him with a sharp glare when they’re outside the barracks again.

He looks down, acutely aware that the two of them had survived the incident only through sheer, dumb luck. “Captain, I–”

“You took an oath to protect the crown,” Mulan says, and it’s still sharp but also warning. “Your behavior earlier today compromised both the crown and the Guard. Queen Emma may have pardoned you for...whatever she has up her sleeve–” She looks exasperated at the idea of it. “But make no mistake of it. This is a trap.”

“I _know_ ,” Henry says, and Mulan laughs, short and hard.

“I don’t even know,” she says, shaking her head, and Henry gets a glimpse for a moment of the cadet who’d been no less than legend when she’d joined the Queen’s Army disguised as a man. She’d saved the whole kingdom on one occasion and General Lancelot had promoted her instead to Captain of the Queen’s Guard, and Queen Regina had expanded the army after that to allow women to join. She’d been a legend when she’d first come to the castle six years ago, but she’d still been uncertain and awkward and Henry had been just bold enough to follow her around for weeks, bright-eyed and awed. Mulan had been half the reason he’d considered becoming a guard in the first place.

And today, her uncertainty makes him tense, too. She spares a smile for him. “At least she isn’t King Leopold,” she says with a sigh, and Henry looks at her in surprise. “At least she isn’t Baron Rumplestiltskin.” He’s the most powerful and most insidious of the barons who seek to undermine the queen, and Henry dislikes him nearly as much as he does Queen Emma, who’d succeeded at the latter. “At least she isn’t Maleficent,” she mutters, and shakes her head. Henry is startled at that one. Lady Maleficent had been one of Queen Regina’s most ardent courtiers, before the wedding, and she’s been coping with her defeat by regarding Queen Emma with both amusement and distaste at Queen Regina’s plight.

“She’s just as bad,” Henry says, loyal, at least, to one of his own people over the White Kingdom’s embarrassment. Better Maleficent than _Emma_.

 **  
** But Mulan just squeezes his shoulder and says, “Be wary, Henry. But don’t forget your duty.” And with a second squeeze, she returns to the barracks.

 

* * *

 

 

In the morning, he follows a winding passageway to Queen Emma’s quarters. They aren’t the royal quarters, which are two large apartments connected to each other for the rulers to discreetly visit one another. Instead, Queen Emma had selected quarters far from Queen Regina’s, a sprawling chamber of linked quarters meant for a lesser prince, which had led to much gossip about any visits from one room to the other– or the lack thereof. The two queens are content to keep their distance from each other, which suits the rest of the palace just fine.

Zelena is leaning against the wall outside Queen Emma’s apartments, chatting up the guards assigned to the apartments and brightening when she sees Henry. “Ah, there you are. Come in, you’re in for a treat.”

He follows her in, bewildered at what could possibly constitute as a _treat_ with this fate, and is faced with a flurry of activity. There are attendants surrounding Queen Emma, flitting around her with dresses and a billowing pair of pants, and she says patiently, “No, I’d like riding trousers.”

“Riding trousers! Why didn’t you say so!” Zelena exclaims, and vanishes into the other room to reappear with a pair of trousers that look as though they’d been made for someone twice the size of the queen.

The queen says, not missing a beat, “Perhaps something a bit smaller.” This time, Zelena emerges with a pair of hideous yellow pants that look a bit like a parrot when held against Queen Emma. The queen turns away, still immeasurably patient, and her eyes brighten when she sees Henry, bewildered in the doorway. “Henry,” she says, batting aside attendants and standing in her white shift. “There you are. I’ll be just a moment more.”

She concedes to a new pair of pants and a vest that one young sympathetic-looking attendant offers, and Henry steps back outside for the dressing process. Queen Emma emerges a moment later. “Come,” she says, laying an arm around his shoulder. Henry wants to shrug it off, but he’s careful, remembering Mulan’s warnings. Instead, he lets himself be steered into the courtyard, where Queen Emma nods to an attendant and waits the ten minutes before they manage to bring her a wooden sword. “Practice with me,” she says, twirling her sword in her hand like an amateur, and Henry gapes at her.

“I’m not– this isn’t–”

Queen Emma claps a hand to her mouth. “Oh, dear,” she says, in a clear imitation of Queen Snow. “Have I done something else unqueenly?”

Her eyes are bright with amusement and Henry grits his teeth and raises his sword, ready to get out at least _some_ well-deserved stress on her.

And the odd thing is, she’s _terrible_ at first. Zelena coos every time Henry’s sword slams into her; but as the morning progresses, Queen Emma starts picking up on his footwork and moving with him. She’s a quick study, as humiliating as this is for both of them, and when she finally manages to hit him, it’s with a gleeful grin that Henry almost returns automatically.

He shakes it off and heads for breakfast when they’re done, trailing behind the queen and her attendants.

Queen Emma shows no sign of dismissing him. “Come,” she says, extending a hand. “Join us for breakfast.”

The queens eat breakfast together on a dais, their attendants milling below them. Henry, uncertain of his new position, is seated just below the dais. Lady Marian is there, and she smiles at him and says, “I hear you’re our new queen’s shadow now.”

“Something like that,” Henry grumbles, and Marian watches him with knowing eyes. Lady Marian isn’t only Queen Regina’s attendant– in fact, she’s closer to an advisor than an attendant. She’s also Queen Regina’s Master of Spies, and she’s always taken an interest in Henry.

Now, she pushes the eggs over to him and says, “Take heart, Henry. It could be worse.” It’s what Mulan had said, too, and Zelena’s scoffing is exactly the response Henry wants to give.

Instead, he eats in silence, watching the queens surreptitiously from his spot below the dais. Queen Emma takes her seat, sliding in beside her wife, and Queen Regina says, “You’re late.”

“I was learning the fine art of the sword,” Queen Emma says, winking down at Henry. Henry cringes, subjected to Queen Regina’s sharp gaze for the second time in a day. “Did you know that throwing your sword is frowned upon as a defensive maneuver?”

Queen Regina is stiff as a statue, her fork laid against her plate but never reaching her food. Her eyes are critical as they run over Queen Emma’s wardrobe. “Your vest is an ill fit.”

“My attendants have been browsing Lancelot’s closets here instead of mine, it seems,” Queen Emma says agreeably, plucking a potato from Queen Regina’s plate and popping it into her mouth. The queen gives her a look that could have turned a seasoned warrior into a squalling babe. Queen Emma tucks a handkerchief into her vest.

Queen Regina says, “Your attendants are insufficient.” There is the barest steel in her voice, enough that the table of attendants around Henry quiets and stills. Zelena aside, these women know well enough to be wary of displeasing _this_ one of their queens.

“Don’t cut off any hands just yet,” Queen Emma says, yawning. “They’ll figure it out eventually. And this vest has _pockets_.” She pats the sides of them. Henry watches, transfixed at the absolute impropriety of this woman beside the queen, this woman who has done nothing to disprove any of what he’d accused of her the day before.

Queen Regina sits in frigid silence for a breath, unmoved. “So you selected pockets over your dignity.” Queen Emma reaches for another potato and Queen Regina plucks it up with her fork before she can take it. “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

Queen Emma quirks an eyebrow. “Are you implying I had dignity to begin with?” She lowers her voice to a mock whisper, loud enough for Henry to hear and grimace. “Careful, you’ll scandalize the attendants.”

Queen Regina presses a hand to her forehead. “Must you be this trying all the time?”

“You wound me,” Queen Emma says, clasping her heart. “Truly.”

Zelena is exchanging smug glances with the other attendants. Henry is uncomfortable, anxious without any real reason why. He glances to Marian for guidance and finds her with her chin propped up on the knuckles of her right hand, watching the queens with an unreadable little smile on her lips.

Queen Regina murmurs something Henry can’t make out, her back straight and her face very still. The conversation does not continue from there. Henry finishes his breakfast, somehow relieved at the silence.

At the end of the meal, Queen Emma stands at the dais and presses a kiss to her wife’s cheek. Queen Regina is immobile at her touch, staring straight ahead in determined indifference as Queen Emma completes her expression of what is undoubtedly _ownership_. Henry is uncomfortable again, thinking back to Mulan’s words on Queen Emma from the night before, and only when Marian clears her throat pointedly does he realize that the table of attendants and both queens are staring at him.

 **  
** Queen Emma has motioned to him to join her. He swallows and stands, already dreading what the rest of his duties for the day might entail.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is loosely inspired by The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner, which is quite probably my favorite book ever. I wouldn't say it's a direct AU (not least because OUAT has??? so many white people??? I trIED with what I could without actually demoting POC in OUAT from royalty to fit roles in this fic but man oh man) but there are some scenes I've roughly lifted from the original, and of course a whole lot of the premise itself.
> 
> That said, you won't need any outside knowledge to read this! It is very much a standard FTL AU, I'm just giving credit where credit is due. :) I hope you've enjoyed so far!


	2. Chapter 2

They fall into a routine after the first day. Henry is up with the sun, waiting outside Queen Emma’s quarters each morning until she saunters out with another terrible outfit for the day. They spar before breakfast every morning, run through practice drills that never seem to improve Queen Emma’s clumsy handling of the sword. She drops it more than once a morning, bends to get it while passing guards snicker and Henry cringes. 

 

At breakfast, Queen Regina makes sighing comments about Queen Emma’s attire or demeanor or tardiness and her gaze turns to Henry more than once. Henry doesn’t know why. Perhaps it’s only that she believes he should have been executed. It’s been years of watching her from the shadows and craving the moment that she might see him, but he hadn’t imagined that it would be like  _ this _ , where he’s only certain that she thinks him a traitor.

 

The first time he’d seen the queen after she’d taken the kingdom, after that day in the throne room, it had been during an early snow that season. He’d gone outside to hurl snowballs from the castle walls, bouncing them off guards who’d stood in place for him indulgently, and ducking the snowballs they’d thrown back at him. It had been a wonderful day until the rain had begun, leaving him shivering and alone on the castle wall, and he’d been soaked through by the time he’d made it down ice-coated stairs. 

 

He’d slipped on the third-to-last step and gone flying, tumbling an improbable amount over icy ground to land face-first into the snowy courtyard, and he’d been momentarily stunned enough that he hadn’t gotten up right away. He’d rolled over in the snow, shivering in his soaked clothing, and there had been a shout from behind him.

 

Queen Regina’s carriage had been idling at the other end of the courtyard, waiting to be loaded for a trip across the kingdom. A huge figure had been moving toward him, brown skin and grey armor stark in the white of the snow, and he’d squinted up, dazed, until he’d recognized then-Lieutenant Lancelot. Lancelot had crouched down and lifted him up, his brow furrowed in concern as he’d looked over Henry, and he’d held him until the carriage had made its way to the castle wall. 

 

Lancelot had brought Henry up into the carriage, and Henry had said, teeth chattering, “I can just walk–” and been ignored. He’d been thunderstruck when he’d been set down inside and discovered, stunned, that Queen Regina had already been inside. 

 

Later, he thinks to wonder why they’d been idling in the courtyard at all if the queen had already arrived. Queen Cora would have put them all to death for making her wait. But Queen Regina only sits in silence, watching the rain from the window and never turning to see who Lancelot had brought inside. Henry had stared at her with the curiosity of a child and she hadn’t noticed, though her fingers had been pressed together on her lap until they’d turned white.

 

The carriage had taken him back into the castle and then left immediately, and Henry had squinted up at the window once he’d been handed off to an attendant and seen Queen Regina’s eyes snapping past him as though he hadn’t been there. 

 

Now, after ten years and Queen Emma’s assignment, she looks at him briefly from time to time, and even disapproval is better than not being noticed at all.

 

At the end of each morning meal, Queen Emma kisses Queen Regina’s cheek. It’s a daily ritual that Queen Regina never acknowledges, and Henry winces now when he sees it and stares at his plate instead. Zelena snickers when Queen Emma walks past, and then promptly rearranges her face into a mask of obsequiousness when Queen Emma turns mildly to her. 

 

The first half of the day is occupied with tutors. Queen Emma had known little about governing even the White Kingdom, and she’s stymied by the information about the land, the people, and the basic structure of the court. “The barons were most influential under King Henry and King Xavier before him,” Henry says impatiently as Queen Emma squints through a book that her tutor had insisted she read. “Queen Cora gave them authority and worked with them as well. But they’d thought that Queen Regina would be more pliable. When she rejected their sovereignty, most turned on her. That’s all you need to know in that book.”

 

Queen Emma blinks at him, looking pleased. It’s taken some time, but Henry’s learned to discern the difference between her expression when she’s pleased with herself or pleased with someone else. When Queen Regina snaps terse rejoinders under her breath, Queen Emma is simultaneously pleased with herself and her wife. Now, she looks pleased with him. “Smart kid,” she says, putting a hand in his hair.

 

He ducks away before she can muss it, horrified. “I _paid_ _attention_ during the last lesson,” he corrects her. “While _you_ were staring out the window.” He remembers a moment too late that she’s also the absolute ruler of this kingdom and tacks on a “Queen Emma,” before she goes and tells Queen Regina about another moment of insolence from that guard who should have been executed.

 

Queen Emma’s nose wrinkles. “Just Emma,” she says, making a face.

 

“Queen Emma,” he repeats, setting his jaw. She might be a joke of a queen, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to pay the consequences of it again. He hurries on. “Queen Regina has made a habit of seizing the estates of barons who’ve been proven of disloyalty, but they have enough power that even she won’t hang them for it. There are limits to what–” He stops. Queen Emma is looking out the window again, eyes glazed over. “Are you even listening?” 

 

She starts in her seat and bobs her head. “Yes. Of course. Barons bad, Regina good. Right?” She wiggles her eyebrows.

 

Zelena says, sounding as bored as the queen has been, “You know, there are many barons who would be happy to work with you instead of her.”

 

Henry whips his head around, outraged at the intimated betrayal. Zelena is smiling as though she’s telling a joke, but her eyes are unreadable. “You’d be surprised at how many of them would love a private audience.” 

 

Queen Emma glances from Henry to Zelena. “I think we’ve found by now that I’m hopeless at politics,” she says, yawning. “I’ll leave it to Henry to take care of.” She pauses and then says, “And, of course, you, my most trusted attendant.” 

 

Zelena preens. Henry instead hears the irony in Queen Emma’s voice as she says it, defusing whatever that  _ offer to treason  _ had been, and he understands for the first time what Mulan had meant when she’d said  _ at least, at least, at least _ . 

 

_ At least _ .

 

They dine with Queen Regina again at lunch, though this meal is a briefer one than breakfast and Queen Regina hardly speaks to her wife at all. Queen Emma complains about her lessons and suggests potential punishments for her tutors, particularly the one who lectures her on tax laws, that have Henry stuffing a turkey leg into his mouth to muffle his laughter. Queen Regina gives him a stern look that lacks her usual rancor, and he ducks his head and has to excuse himself on more than one occasion. Zelena, who seems just as happy with chaos wreaked toward others as she is with chaos wreaked toward Queen Emma, cackles aloud at his misfortune.

 

Queen Regina’s eyes flicker to Zelena and then away, without the sternness that had punctuated her frown at Henry. Zelena, Henry’s noticed, is perhaps the only subject in this castle who remains unacknowledged by Queen Regina, even when she dances on the edge of disrespect.

 

After lunch comes the endless stream of peasants and lords, disputes and requests that fill the throne room each afternoon. Both queens preside over them, though Queen Emma lounges on her throne, cheek propped up in her palm as she endures it. Occasionally, Queen Regina will elbow her hard enough in the arm that she’ll sit up straight and say something properly ridiculous before she slouches again.

 

“Execution,” Queen Regina says in judgment of a man who’d broken into a home and killed the lord of the house.

 

Queen Emma, recently elbowed, says, “Ah, yes, my wife’s favorite pastime,” and flashes a grin at the room around them. “I think she’d feel rather desolate each morning if she looked out her window and there weren’t someone hanging from the city wall.” 

 

“As though you’d know what the queen wakes up to,” Zelena mutters, but the other attendants are too taken aback to laugh. Henry glares at Queen Emma, bidding her desperately with his sheer force of will to  _ shut up _ .

 

The room is hushed, furtive eyes on the two queens. Queen Regina recovers admirably, barely a flash of surprise in her eyes before her lips curl into a dangerous sort of smile. She casts an eye around the room that leaves no doubt as to the accuracy of Queen Emma’s comment, and her eyes settle on one man in particular, who is standing in the shadows.

 

Henry had seen him when he’d entered the throne room that day, and he’s kept a surreptitious eye on him since.  _ Rumplestiltskin _ . The wealthiest and most powerful baron in the kingdom, a close ally of Queen Cora’s before she’d been banished, and Queen Regina’s most dangerous enemy. He has enough power that even Queen Regina can’t control his movements, and he lingers in the throne room too often. Queen Emma has never shown any sign of noticing him at all.

 

The other queen’s implied threat is an empty one, though, and they all know it. There’s nothing that Queen Regina can do to Baron Rumplestiltskin, not as long as he hasn’t overtly been proven guilty of conspiracy. So for now, she deals in icy stares and smiles, and he only inclines his head back in response, his eyes glittering with amusement. 

 

Queen Emma slumps back in her seat, bored and oblivious to the tension she’s fomented in the room. “Who’s next?” she says without any enthusiasm. “Is it dinner time yet?” 

 

Henry’s never known anyone to enjoy food sprinkled with sand with so much gusto.

 

On some days, there are fewer subjects to govern and the queens retire early. Queen Regina walks in her garden with Lady Marian, who provides an overview of the newest reports from her spies throughout the kingdoms. Queen Emma, alone in the castle with nothing to do, returns to her apartments.

 

Her attendants fuss gleefully over her, cooing with suppressed mockery in their tones. “You simply must change for dinner– shall I call the seamstress? Perhaps a walk along castle grounds? Your Majesty, let us do something with your hair–” It goes on and on until even Queen Emma comes close to losing her temper– flashes of annoyance that she quickly masks until she’s snarling  _ Enough!  _ and dragging Henry by the arm into her private rooms.

 

“Stand by the door,” she barks out, and then winces and slams a fist against the wall with surprising energy for someone who has seemed so calm until now. Another piece of the puzzle that is Queen Emma. Henry stands stock-still and tries not to flinch.

 

Queen Emma notices anyway. “My apologies, Henry,” she murmurs. “I didn’t mean to be so sharp.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, one of Queen Regina’s mainstays when irritable. “Please, if you don’t mind–”

 

He stands by the door, and she squeezes his shoulder and pulls out a chair. Henry shoots her a surreptitious look, wondering what she might do next– maybe break it, maybe hurl it out the window and climb right from the castle– but she only sits down, one leg tucked under her other knee as she gazes out the window.

 

She doesn’t speak, and for a long time she sits in place and doesn’t move. Henry glances at her, aflame with curiosity, but he doesn’t dare interrupt her, not until there’s a rapid knock at the door and Zelena announces that the attendants  _ must  _ ready Queen Emma for dinner.

 

The queen rises and leaves, her hand resting on Henry’s shoulder fleetingly as she walks past him, and Henry waits for a moment before he follows. He glances at the next room to be sure that no one’s watching before he sits in Queen Emma’s seat and stares out the window.

 

He’d thought it might face the White Kingdom, a display of its flags and rising turrets of the castle from afar; but the only villages he can see from the chair are the small, poor villages under Queen Regina’s jurisdiction. Baffled, he steps from the room and returns to Queen Emma and her attendants, preparing for dinner.

 

* * *

 

Dinner is a grand affair in the castle more often than not. The queens are seated at a dais, the castle nobility milling about below, and the meal is a picture of formality. Queen Emma nearly inhales her sand-covered food and her attendants snicker from a few feet to the right of the dais, and Henry stands with them and feels unbearably awkward. 

 

There are few other guards there, assigned to nobility or to the ballroom and on duty. They wink at him from time to time, entertained by the absurdity of his situation and no longer as sympathetic as they’d been at first.

 

Which is his own fault, really. He’d been happy to go along with them at the start, laughing at their suppositions about what Queen Emma gets up to during the day. But over the days spent with her, the jokes have begun to lose their luster and Henry can only think instead about Queen Emma hearing them, her lips curled into a sardonic smile that is pointed at everyone and no one at once.

 

It begins to feel  _ disloyal _ , and Henry bites his lip and resigns himself to being a killjoy instead. Fortunately, most of his fellow guards have seen his change in attitude to be an unwilling order from the queen and haven’t actively started up with him over it. Less fortunately, he’s back to being an outcast, the castle library brat instead of their equal. 

 

Mulan stands against the wall beside him, shaking her head. “They’re young,” she says. “And many do feel as though the new queen is a betrayal to the throne.” 

 

Henry bobs his head, though he can’t say exactly what it is that that thought stirs up within him. “Yes, Captain.” 

 

“When Queen Emma is finished with...whatever she’s planning with you,” Mulan says, eyes flickering up to the dais. The queens are eating, their eyes on the room instead of each other. Queen Emma is murmuring something that has Queen Regina’s stone face crack into a smirk, and she responds with a comment that is sharp enough that Queen Emma stops smiling. She glances toward Henry and Mulan and Mulan turns back to the rest of the room. “You’ll have a place in the guard,” Mulan assures him, and Henry exhales.

 

“Thank you, Captain.” He turns away as well, watching the door as others enter the room. As his eyes land on the archway, the Lady Maleficent sweeps into the room, accompanied by two other baronesses Henry doesn’t know by name.

 

“Ursula,” Mulan says under her breath. “Cruella. What are they up to?” As though in answer, behind them, Baron Rumplestiltskin makes his entrance. Mulan lets out a curse and departs, heading to the other guards in the room to inform them.

 

The queens have finished eating. Queen Regina is watching the entry of the three women and Rumplestiltskin with her mouth in a tight line. The band strikes up a tune and Queen Emma stands, extending a hand to Queen Regina, and Queen Regina lays her own hand gracefully in her wife’s.

 

The dance floor is the one place where both queens are in sync, where they actually seem to  _ like  _ each other. Henry had watched them with fascination when Princess Emma had first come to the castle with her White guard during the negotiations, outraged at the humiliation but perplexed at why Queen Regina would ever concede to it. He’d seen them dancing together on the first night, graceful and breathless as they’d run through the motions, and he’d thought that maybe it had been a love match, after all.

 

Then Princess Emma had muttered something that had made Queen Regina’s cheeks hot and red, her eyes narrowed and furious, and Queen Regina had turned on her heel and stalked from the dance floor. Henry had seen Princess Emma’s shoulders slump and had wondered, for a moment––

 

Now they dance nightly, and even their characteristic tension can’t get between them on the dance floor. Queen Regina is, of course, a revelation, flying across the dance floor with every step she’d been taught since she’d been a child. She whirls around, gleaming in red, her hair pinned up and her dress flowing around her like molten lava. Queen Emma catches her, spins her, takes two steps back and twists and their fingers are barely touching but they don’t fall out of step. Queen Emma doesn’t have Queen Regina’s finesse– she is untrained and gawky even when she’s practicing with a sword– but somehow,  _ this  _ she can do. She moves with Queen Regina as though they’d been born to dance together, and Henry is spellbound as he watches.

 

Queen Emma is doing something with her hands, swift and barely noticeable to less discerning eyes, but Henry can see the way her fingers twitch each time Queen Regina is close, dancing to her hair as she dances to her wife. This segment of the dance has them moving together, Queen Emma’s hand at her wife’s back, just below her neck, and Queen Regina’s hand resting on her wife’s waist. 

 

When they pull apart this time, Henry can see what Queen Emma had been doing– systematically removing each of Queen Regina’s hairpins. Her hair flows free, dark and long and striking, and Queen Emma stumbles and misses a step, her eyes softer than Henry’s ever seen them. 

 

The first dance comes to a close, and Queen Regina separates from her wife, extending a hand and waiting until Queen Emma drops the hairpins back into her palm. Marian is there a moment later, guiding her into a side room to fix her hair, and Queen Emma stands alone on the dance floor as another woman steps toward her, coy but bold.

 

Queen Emma dances with her, and Henry watches hard, trying to see if there’s the same magic when it’s someone else. Instead, he sees the woman fluttering her eyebrows and blushing at whatever it is that Queen Emma says, her hand dipping them closer together, on the edge of propriety, and Queen Emma seems vague and bewildered at the whole matter. The woman laughs, touching Queen Emma’s shoulder, and Henry grinds his teeth together and peers around to see if anyone has noticed.

 

Baron Rumplestiltskin, leaning against a wall and chatting with a woman Henry doesn’t know, has beady eyes fixed on them. Henry shudders and looks back to Queen Emma. The queen’s eyes have sharpened and she’s looking over her dance partner’s shoulder at the other end of the room, where Queen Regina has returned from fixing her hair and been waylaid by Maleficent.

 

They dance artfully, two trained together in the castle walls and Maleficent an old friend of the queen’s. Their dances are skilled and comfortable, Queen Regina’s eyes light when she moves with Maleficent and her lips moving far more often than they do with Queen Emma, and Maleficent is familiar with her as well. But there’s a coolness to it, so polished that there’s little fire, and Henry thinks that it doesn’t compare at all to the queens’ dance.

 

Queen Emma has disentangled herself from her dance partner and found another, the woman who’d been talking to Rumplestiltskin just before. This woman, too, bats her eyelashes at Queen Emma and whispers something in her ear, and Queen Emma doesn’t seem to notice any of it, her eyes still across the room.

 

The only person who manages to distract her is Zelena, who murmurs something to the queen that has her blink and separate from her partner. She looks around the room before she finds Henry, and nods to him and makes a quiet exit from the room while Maleficent and Queen Regina are the center of attention. Her attendants file from the room, her official retinue of guards trailing behind them, and Henry has to jog to catch up to her. “What’s going on?” 

 

Queen Emma heaves her shoulders in a shrug. “It seems as though I’ve been nearly murdered,” she says, her tone irritable as though she’s been terribly inconvenienced by this silliness. “My presence has been requested in the kitchens.” 

 

Henry gapes. “ _ What _ ?” One of the attendants raises her eyes heavenward. Queen Emma shrugs again. 

 

In the kitchens, guards mill about while several of the staff address the queen with low, tense tones. Henry wonders which of them is the one to sprinkle sand on all of Queen Emma’s food. “Ella prepares your meals,” Cook says, nodding to a girl who cringes and looks down quickly.  _ Well _ . That solves that.

 

“Your Majesty,” she says, dipping into a bow. “I...uh. I was delivering the desserts upstairs and left it unattended and one of the cats got to…” She flushes red, and Queen Emma watches, an eyebrow cocked. Henry is suddenly sure that Queen Emma has put the pieces together as well. “It…”

 

“It’s dead,” Cook says, impatient. She’s always been impatient, but always kind, and she looks at Queen Emma with wary eyes. “We found traces of a white powder on your dessert that was absent on anyone else’s.” She stands still, a hand resting on Ella’s shoulder, and they wait.

 

Henry knows what they’re waiting for. Everyone in the room knows what they’re waiting for. This is negligence at best, and a murder attempt at worst. And Ella– who’s been sabotaging Queen Emma’s food for weeks and weeks now– has plenty of motive, and no favor with the queen. There is only one reaction to this, and Henry sees out of the corner of his eye that several of the guards have their hands on their swords, preparing for an arrest or an immediate execution. 

 

Ella shivers, her head still down and her face paling as Queen Emma takes a step forward. Maybe she’d strike her. Henry remembers her fist against the wall, nearly making an indentation, and he shudders in advance. Cook doesn’t move, prepared to share the punishment with Ella, and her eyes are very grave.

 

Queen Emma lays a hand on Ella’s other shoulder. “I owe you my gratitude,” she says, and Henry’s eyes widen in surprise. “For acting so swiftly to save my life.” 

 

Ella quivers, still terrified, and Queen Emma turns to Cook. “I’m sure you can arrange some extra compensation for such quick thinking,” she says, smiling. Behind her, Zelena is shaking her head in disbelief. The guards look disgruntled at another sign of weakness from their queen, and Queen Emma says, “This one isn’t poisoned, is it?” and eats a dessert happily in the midst of the bustling kitchens.

 

“Here, Henry, try this,” she says, and now  _ he’s  _ supposed to eat a dessert happily in the midst of the bustling kitchens, Cook watching him fondly and watching the queen with rising respect. Ella has scampered off to find something else, and Queen Emma leans against a dirty table in her royal ballgown and exclaims over a pastry while her entourage cringes. 

 

Henry says, “Your Majesty, maybe we should move back upstairs when we know that someone down here tried to  _ kill  _ you,” and gets handed another pastry for it. He sighs and eats it, too. “Now?” 

 

“If you insist,” Queen Emma says, sighing in an awful imitation of his exasperation. He glares at her. She grins at him and turns to go, scrunching her nose at a rancid smell that isn’t concealed even by the kitchens. 

 

“We’ve searched and searched for the source of it, but no luck,” Cook says apologetically. “It must be somewhere in the walls.” 

 

“Did you check the passage beside that window?” Queen Emma asks, nodding at an inset window with a near-invisible door on its side, if you know where to look.

 

Except no one has ever known where to look, and Henry gapes at Queen Emma and says aloud, “What passage?” 

 

“The one that leads to the throne room,” Queen Emma says, reaching over to tap its side. Henry follows her and nearly gags at the stench coming from it. “Maybe there’s another cat trapped in there.” She sighs and nods to her impatient attendants. “Yes, yes, I’m coming,” and follows them back upstairs.

 

Henry trails after her, his eyes still wide.  _ No one  _ has ever known where to look for that passage. Henry hasn’t fit inside it since he’d turned ten, but he’d spent plenty of time beforehand crawling through the passage, sneaking into the kitchens at night and watching from the wall during the day as Queen Cora had practiced her particular brand of cruelty with her subjects.

 

How the  _ hell  _ does Queen Emma know about it?

 

* * *

 

Henry hears the commotion before he sees it, guards shifting and attendants scattering and then the  _ click-click-click  _ of heels against a wood floor. The queen is coming. The  _ other  _ queen, rather, because Queen Emma is sprawled out on a couch in her apartments right now, eyes half-closed as she contemplates a wall hanging on the opposite wall. “Move it to the right,” she finally decides, and the attendant moves it to the left. “No, the right,” Queen Emma corrects her.

 

“That’s  _ your _ right,” Henry points out, and she shrugs at him, smirking at his scowl. He isn’t amused. 

 

The attendant shifts to the right and Queen Emma shakes her head and says, “It’s fine. I’ll do it.” 

 

She gets up as the attendant says, “Your Majesty,  _ please _ , that’s unnecessary,” and tries to seize the wall hanging, tugging it too hard from the attendant’s hands and crashing backward onto the ground, the wall hanging toppling onto her with a bang.

 

Henry darts forward as the door flies open, Queen Regina pushing forward ahead of her guards with her eyes flashing. Her eyes sweep over the room in alarm, and then land on the hapless attendant and the wall hanging crumpled on the floor.

 

Queen Emma pushes a portion of the hanging away, smiling weakly up at her. “Hi, Regina,” she says.

 

Queen Regina just stares, her eyes dark and sharp, and Henry crouches down to help disentangle her wife from the hanging. Behind them, Queen Regina’s entourage back quietly out of the room, and the attendant who’d been helping Queen Emma follows them. Only the queens, Henry, and two others remain in the room.

 

The first is Lady Marian, of course, who rarely leaves Queen Regina’s side. The second is a woman Henry knows well. He’s always called her Granny, as most do, and he can’t recall her real name. She’s been the ambassador from the White Kingdom since before Henry had been born, and she’s coped with the marriage and the havoc wreaked following it with exasperation and interminable patience.

 

“Uh-oh,” Queen Emma says, finally rising to her feet with Henry’s help. “I’m in trouble.” But she isn’t looking at Granny, only at her wife’s grim face.

 

“You disappeared in the middle of dinner,” Queen Regina accuses her. The door has been sliding closed slowly, attendants craning their necks to hear why Queen Regina would ever willingly visit Queen Emma, and the door finally clicks closed then as Henry gets the answer to the same question. This is a reprimand, their true queen dealing with her unruly wife yet again.

 

Henry, who had been in the kitchens with Queen Emma as well, waits with bated breath for Queen Emma’s response. It’s strange, how quickly he’s come to know instinctively that Queen Emma will protect the ones Queen Regina would rightfully execute. Queen Emma blunders her way through her rule, but she is  _ kind _ , and she won’t–

 

“I got tired of you dancing with that harpy,” Queen Emma says. Her voice is rougher when she talks to Queen Regina, less polished, and belligerent, provoking. “She knows all the steps and executes them perfectly, just like you. It’s boring.”

 

“Hardly as dull as watching Rumple’s women fling themselves all over you,” Queen Regina counters. Henry averts his eyes but keeps glancing back, feeling like an eavesdropper privy to a conversation that is meant for the two of them alone. Granny and Marian have no such compunctions, from the way they’re watching with raised eyes as Queen Regina turns a look of disdain toward her wife. “It’s unseemly. Have I not suffered enough in this marriage?”

 

Henry’s head jerks up, unbidden, and he’s staring before he can stop himself, studying Queen Regina’s stone face and Queen Emma’s sparkling eyes and understanding none of it. “At this point, I’m surprised he hasn’t offered  _ himself _ up as my mistress,” Queen Emma says smugly, and Queen Regina massages her forehead and seats herself on the couch, stiff and formal as though she’s sitting on her throne.

 

She places her hand on the cushion beside her and Queen Emma takes it as an invitation to plop down on the couch, because of course she has no sense of propriety. If nothing else, his new job has granted Henry a greater appreciation for Queen Regina’s infinite reserves of patience when faced with someone she can’t execute. Queen Regina looks up, unimpressed with Queen Emma’s bravado, and says, “Ambassador Lucas, any day now.” 

 

“Sorry,” Granny says, sounding unapologetic. “I thought I’d let you two finish up your nonsense first.” She waves vaguely at them both. Henry thinks he must be imagining the tint of pink on Queen Regina’s cheeks. “I bear news from the White Kingdom.” 

 

Queen Emma perks up, her voice singsong and mocking. “Oh, excellent! Has my mother gotten a new songbird? She can name it Emma and declare it her heir and it’ll be everything she’s ever dreamed of.”

 

“Emma,” Queen Regina murmurs, and Queen Emma falls silent, her brow furrowing. “She’s coming here on a royal visit to see you.” 

 

Queen Emma’s smile fades, and her eyes turn blank and unreadable in a way she so rarely is. “Ah,” she says, and her hands curl around her knees, her knuckles white and her nails digging into her skin. 

 

And Henry remembers  _ a foundling child _ and Queen Emma returning to her palace after decades of being alone, of not even having a castle to raise her as he had. And he’s suddenly uncertain about what this royal visit might mean, and awash with an odd nagging sensation of... _ compassion _ ? that he can’t shake.

 

Queen Regina stands, her eyes flickering to Henry and then to Marian. She doesn’t look at Queen Emma again. “I will retire to my quarters for the night,” she announces, and Marian opens the door.

 

Henry knows what the attendants peering curiously inside will see– Queen Emma, her face expressionless, alone and stubborn and small on the couch as though she’s been thoroughly reproached. Queen Regina sweeps from the room and Queen Emma stands and walks stiffly to her bedchambers, locking the door behind her.

 

And Henry is surprised at the indignation that swells up within him, the outrage that has him sprinting down the hall to catch up to Queen Regina’s retinue before she makes the trip back to her own apartments. Marian gives him a warning look, but Queen Regina halts the procession and turns to face him. “Guard,” she says, and he’s nearly a foot taller than her but it still feels as though she’s looking down at him.

 

He stands, at a loss as to what he can actually  _ say _ , and he stammers out, “My Queen–” and falls silent. He knows– he  _ knows  _ Queen Emma is floundering right now, but who is he to protect her? To call for a woman who must despise her as a tormenter to–

  
Queen Regina gives him a fleeting smile. It’s so rare that she smiles at all, and he’s struck dumb at the kindness in it, at the way it transforms her from something immense and terrifying to only a woman, flesh and blood. She touches his shoulder, light and gentle, and he can only stare up at her and remember how desperately he’d once wished that she might be his mother. But she’d had more important matters to deal with and no interest in the baby boy she’d saved, and he’d settled for her being his queen instead. “Take heart, young guard,” she says, and he stares at her in beseeching wonder as she turns from him and continues on with her entourage to her quarters.


	3. Chapter 3

Queen Snow comes to the castle with a phalanx of guards and distrustful eyes that narrow and stay on Queen Regina as she waits to greet her. “Snow,” Queen Regina says, her lips pursed into a smile that looks strained and forced. 

 

“Regina,” Queen Snow says coolly, and Henry rethinks everything he’s seen between Queen Snow’s daughter and Queen Regina, because  _ this  _ is hatred, seething and dark and distrustful. Queen Regina might resent Queen Emma, but this is nothing near that level of–

 

Then Queen Emma is standing there and Queen Snow throws her arms around her as Queen Regina’s eyes darken and yes, perhaps he hadn’t misjudged the hatred there after all. There’s a new level to it when Queen Regina looks at Queen Emma, something darker even than the hatred she holds for Queen Snow. 

 

Henry knows their story as well as anyone. He’d spent his childhood asking about Princess Regina, learning all he could about the girl who’d saved him and then been sent away. There hadn’t been many people who could offer him more than rumors, and he’d spent days curled up in Granny’s offices, drinking her cocoa and listening to stories of the White Kingdom’s new queen.

 

She’d been brought there to ally their kingdoms– the first time it had been attempted, anyway. Queen Cora had agreed to the alliance because at the time, the White Kingdom had been wealthy and prominent, and their own kingdom had been on the decline after King Henry’s death. 

 

And something had gone sour. Henry can guess  _ what _ when he’d looked at the pictures of their wedding, at the elderly king and the teenaged queen and the woman beaming behind her, an arm around her shoulders.  _ Princess Snow _ , he’d known; because everyone had known Princess Snow, heir to her Uncle Leopold’s throne, back then. Marian had been just a girl but already a confidant to Queen Regina who’d traveled back and forth between the kingdoms, slipping him little tidbits knowingly as he’d trailed after her.

 

_ Princess Snow adores the queen _ , she’d said, and Henry had been ecstatic at the news.  _ Princess Snow is pleased that her uncle has found companionship again, _ she’d said, her voice more careful, and Granny had grunted her disapproval and knitted her blanket a bit faster.

 

It had taken some time before Henry had seen what the White Kingdom had done to Queen Regina, before she’d sat in her throne room and made plans to restore the kingdom to its prior glory in time for Queen Snow to declare war. She’d made grand statements about Queen Regina’s betrayal and accused her of poisoning her dear uncle, and Queen Regina had sneered and not denied any of it.

 

Henry can imagine how fiercely Queen Snow should have opposed Queen Regina marrying into her family again. It’s baffling to him that she would have pushed the marriage, even if it had been about humiliating the kingdom. Or perhaps she’d seen it as the perfect revenge.

 

Either way, it seems cold indeed, and he watches Queen Snow’s embrace of Queen Emma with wary eyes. Queen Emma stands stiff in her arms, her elbows bent and her hands to her mother’s back, and her eyes are sightless and open. “My sweet Emma,” Queen Snow says, cradling Emma’s face in her own. Henry’s never seen Queen Emma look quite so young, her face pale and small as she stares at her mother. “Come, show me your castle.” 

 

A muscle in Queen Regina’s jaw twitches, and she says, “My wife and I would be happy to show you our home.” It’s carefully phrased to provoke, malice tempered by steel, and Queen Snow’s eyes narrow. Queen Emma looks almost fearful, being wielded as a weapon by a woman who must loathe her, and she swallows and trails behind her mother.

 

Zelena whispers something to one of the other attendants, virtually bouncing at this impressive diminishing of Queen Emma. Marian looks troubled at the exchange. Mulan prods Henry and he hurries after Queen Emma, walking by her side as other guards fall into place around the queens. Queen Emma tosses him a brief smile, the first she’s displayed today, and squeezes his arm as they move into the castle.

 

Queen Snow notices him, ducking beside Queen Emma and looking less like a guard than an attendant. “Who is this?” she says, eyes wary as though she thinks he might be some new humiliation served to her daughter.  _ No, this my humiliation, not hers,  _ he thinks, but his heart is less and less behind that outrage every day.

 

Queen Emma slips an arm around his shoulders, regaining some of her confidence with her usual practice of being entirely unqueenly around Henry. “This is my personal lieutenant,” she says, which makes him blink at her in confusion. With just that introduction, he’s promoted, the queen’s words on the matter definitive and final. “Henry,” she says, and now he blinks again, this time at Queen Snow as her lips part and her eyes round.

 

“Henry,” she says, glancing over to Queen Regina. “This is…?”

 

Queen Regina doesn’t deign her with a response to that baffling reaction. Henry is confused himself, because Henry isn’t an uncommon name, especially for boys born just after King Henry’s death. Queen Emma squeezes his arm again and clears her throat. “My quarters are down this way,” she says, pointing to a hall nowhere near her quarters. “Shall we?” 

 

“Of course,” Queen Snow says readily, but Henry can still feel her eyes on him as they begin the long trek to the other side of the castle.

 

* * *

 

Queen Snow isn’t  _ unkind _ , and that’s why so much of what goes on between her and Queen Emma is so perplexing to Henry. She seems to genuinely love her daughter as much as she despises Queen Regina, and Queen Emma responds with jerky movements, with resentment and discomfort that Henry’s never seen from her before.

 

Queen Regina is there when Queen Emma falters, moving in smoothly between them and provoking Queen Snow again and again. It’s always cool and dismissive, always so casually scathing that Henry begins to suspect that Queen Regina rather enjoys it. If she must suffer for the treaty with the White Kingdom, she seems perfectly willing to dance on the edge of it, inviting disaster time after time but never quite crossing into it.

 

With Queen Snow’s arrival, the other two queens are more distant than ever. They sit with Queen Snow between them during meals, Queen Regina and Queen Snow trading verbal spars as Queen Emma tackles her food and looks at neither of them. Queen Emma has ducked out of her duties while her mother is present, avoiding the throne room and instead walking in the gardens with Queen Snow in the afternoons.

 

Henry is with them each day, listens to Queen Snow’s probing questions and Queen Emma’s noncommittal responses. “Do you have the authority you deserve here?” 

 

“Oh, certainly,” Queen Emma says, which says alarming things about what she believes she deserves, perhaps. “Except for my tutors, who don’t respect me at all. And Granny. She knitted me a hat, as though I’m a child who can’t be trusted to go out in the cold without catching ill.” Queen Emma sniffs. Henry hides a smile. It had been a rather adorable hat. Queen Regina had been there when it had been presented, and her eyes had danced with something like laughter before she’d gravely thanked Granny for her generous gift.  _ I am certain my wife will get much use from it. _

 

“Granny knitted your baby blanket,” Queen Snow says, her eyes distant for a moment. “After we knew that we would have no choice but to send you away, she knitted your name on it, too, so you’d always be our Emma.” She’s a bit teary-eyed as she beams at Queen Emma.

 

Queen Emma’s hands are shaking at her sides, and she digs them into her trousers and says, “And you found me,” so blankly that Henry wants to shake her.

 

Because they’d  _ found  _ her. He’s spent his whole life dreaming of being found, dreaming of having a  _ mother  _ like every foundling does. Queen Regina had been distant and dangerous and he’d still watched her for every moment she’d been in the palace, desperate that she might someday remember him, find him as she’d found him once before. Queen Emma had been a foundling, too, but she’d had the ultimate happy ending, and Henry can’t understand why she seems so unhappy with it now.

 

They retire to Queen Emma’s apartments and Queen Snow lingers as though she might stay, seating herself on the sofa and making conversation with Zelena and the other attendants. Queen Emma paces, wistful eyes flickering to her private room, and Queen Snow says, “Emma, please, calm down. What’s gotten into you?” 

 

“Nothing,” Queen Emma says, pacing a little faster. “I’m just restless.” 

 

“You’re always restless here,” Queen Snow says, frowning. “You were never like this at home.” 

 

“I was so dolled up in your castle that I don’t think I could have walked a dozen steps without tripping on my own dresses,” Emma says dryly.

 

“It’s  _ her _ ,” Queen Snow says, and no one in the room wonders who  _ her  _ could be. Zelena still has that plastic smile on her face, but a few of the other attendants are looking to each other almost guiltily, as though they agree with Queen Snow. Henry shifts from foot to foot, uncomfortable. “She’s done this to you. I remember, my uncle would–” 

 

“Can we  _ please  _ not talk about your uncle?” Queen Emma says, rising abruptly. 

 

Queen Snow’s lips purse. “Then what shall we talk about? The hell Regina is putting you through? I’ve  _ lived  _ this, Emma. I thought she would be like a daughter to me. I–”

 

“She was a  _ child _ ,” Queen Emma snaps, so violently that the room falls silent, and she sighs and says, “I don’t care about...about any of this. I don’t want to talk about Regina. Ever.” She looks sick, worn from the conversation or perhaps even thoughts of the wife she seems to have wanted as little as Queen Regina had. “I want to be alone,” she says, and takes a step toward her inner rooms.

 

Queen Snow looks as though she might follow Queen Emma right into there, the conversation far from over. Queen Emma says, “Mom,  _ please _ ,” and Queen Snow closes her eyes, her jaw clenched. Queen Emma turns away from her, her hands shaking again, and she says, “Henry.”

 

Henry follows her into the room, helps her tug out a chair and put it in front of the window. Queen Emma sits in it in silence, Henry forgotten, and he stands behind her and stares at the walls as she gazes at the villages visible from the window. 

 

* * *

 

They lose Queen Emma the next afternoon, which isn’t an uncommon occurrence but it still fills Henry with dread when they’re turning a corner to the gardens and the queen is suddenly gone. The other guards fan out, searching corridors and muttering about a queen who’s been in the palace for months and still can’t keep her directions straight, and Zelena makes snide comments as she waits in the hall.

 

Henry looks around, semi-frantic, and he’s about to follow one of the guards in the direction of the garden when he remembers that there’s a passage behind one of the walls around the next corner. 

 

There’s no way Queen Emma would find it– except that she’d somehow found the passage in the kitchen, hadn’t she? She must have an eye for these passages, or she’d somehow known about them beforehand. And she has a talent for disappearing right under their noses.

 

Henry knows where the passage ends, across the castle in the Council Room, and he waits until the guards have dispersed before he heads in that direction. No one follows him. Zelena doesn’t even notice him leaving, though one of the younger attendants tosses him a curious glance. There is a lot of tutting from the attendants and very little concern; murder attempts or not, Queen Emma is little more than an irritation to them.

 

Henry, less capable of nonchalance, sprints through the halls and gets turned around twice and reprimanded by a superior officer before he skids to a halt outside the Council Room. He pushes the door open and stops midway through, recognizing the voices engaged in furious disagreement across the room a moment too late.

 

He moves to close the door and give the two queens the privacy they’d sought out, but his feet won’t obey and he can’t tear his eyes from the scene in front of him. Queen Regina is white-knuckled, her eyes cool and hard and her voice deadly quiet, and Queen Emma is glaring back at her with a smoldering sort of fury that Henry’s never seen on the new queen’s face before.

 

He can’t make out what they’re saying. Their voices are barely audible– both of them must have slipped away from their attendants and are still hiding, Henry realizes– and they’re standing close enough that he can’t even make out the breadth of expression on their faces. What he can see is what must be loathing on their faces, the dull edges of resentment and mockery in their public lives unsheathed in private, and he wonders with a sinking heart just what he would do in the event of any of this hatred coming to light.

 

Queen Emma’s voice rises on several occasions, words he can scarcely make out–  _ my mother  _ and  _ you wouldn’t dare _ and  _ I thought we had an understanding _ – but she’s losing the fight, whatever it is. Queen Regina is expressionless, and her responses are measured but unrelenting against her wife’s fire.  _ Good _ , Henry thinks,  _ good that she gets to fight back sometimes,  _ and he is uneasy about it as well.

 

He remembers to back away at last, slips the door closed again and makes his way back to where Queen Emma had disappeared. It isn’t his place to have witnessed any of this. He’ll go back to the others and wait with them until Queen Emma has returned, and pretend that he knows nothing of the quarrel. 

 

Instead, he returns to the attendants shuffling their feet and Zelena with her hands wide and face innocent as she speaks with a rigid Queen Snow. “You _ lost  _ her?” Queen Snow says disbelievingly.

 

“The queen is a free spirit,” Zelena says, conciliatory. Her eyes light on Henry and gleam with opportunity. “I’m sure young Henry knows where she’s gone off to.”

 

“To avoid another moment alone with me, I’m certain,” Queen Snow says bitterly, and she turns and leaves the hallway, returning to the gardens without another word. 

 

Henry swallows, another queen to deal with, and he doesn’t think before he brushes past Zelena to chase her. “Your Majesty,” he calls out, and he has no idea what he’s going to say before she turns to him, her eyes gleaming with tears. “Your Majesty,” he says again, less certain than before. “The queen...she didn’t…” 

 

“Of course she did,” Queen Snow says, and she sinks onto a garden bench, her guard moving a dozen feet from them surreptitiously. “Do you think I don’t know? She hated my court, hated her family, hated every bit of the home she’d been born into.” 

 

Henry stays silent, standing in front of her and unable to decide where to put his hands. He settles for at his side, fingers scrabbling at his sides uncomfortably. 

 

Queen Snow leans back against the garden wall, her eyes still wet with tears. “A treaty could have been made without marriage,” she says. It had sounded defiant and accusatory from Henry’s mouth. From Queen Snow’s, it sounds only defeated. “I begged her to reconsider, but she remained firm. She would choose a queen who makes her miserable than to remain in my court just one day longer.” 

 

She looks up at Henry with pleading eyes, as though she’s only just noticed that she’s been speaking to him. “You. You must know better than anyone if...if the rumors are true.” Henry shakes his head, but she’s already firing questions at him. “Is it true? Have they never even shared a bed since the wedding night?” Henry flushes crimson, horrified at the query. “Does Regina truly despise her? Make a mockery of her? Have they never even spent time together alone?” 

 

“They have!” Henry says, relieved at the opportunity to ignore that first question. “I just saw–” 

 

“Have they ever spent time together alone where they weren’t fighting?” Queen Snow presses, and Henry hangs his head and has to confess, “I don’t know.” 

 

Queen Snow looks at him for a long moment. “I owe you a great debt,” she says, and her eyes are grave. “But I must ask you for a favor regardless.”

 

“Your Majesty,” Henry says automatically, as always baffled by Queen Snow. “I am at your service, of course.” 

 

Queen Snow reaches out, takes his hands in hers, and he stares into her desperate gaze and doesn’t know how he’s supposed to be loyal to  _ another  _ queen who can’t get along with the other two. “Speak with Emma on my behalf,” she says urgently. “Please. She might not listen to me, but I know she values your opinion. Persuade her to give me a  _ chance _ .” 

 

Henry thinks to explain that he isn’t Queen Emma’s trusted lieutenant, regardless of appearances, and he’s fairly certain it’ll be a cold day in hell before Queen Emma  _ listens  _ to him, but he can only say numbly, “I’ll try.” 

 

Queen Snow’s face splits into a relieved smile. “Good. Good, thank you,” she says again, shaking his hands vigorously, and Henry can only nod and smile and think  _ what the hell have I gotten myself into? _

 

* * *

 

And it isn’t the last time that day that a queen asks a favor of him.

 

Queen Emma has returned at last, moody and irritable as she endures the clucking of her attendants, and they immediately beset her with a nightmarish array of suggested ballgowns for the formal dinner that night. “No,” she says, her fist clenching at her side, and the attendants exchange amused smirks at the possibility that they may yet get the queen to crack. “ _ No _ ,” she snarls at a terrible, puffy white piece that bears a frightening resemblance to a cupcake. A clashing orange ensemble is offered to her, then a green dress with petals sprouting from the skirts like a fairy’s costume. “No. No.  _ NO _ !” The last is punctuated by her foot slamming against the floor, childish and furious and her eyes almost frightening.

 

“Your Majesty,” Zelena says faux-gently, placing a hand on her shoulder, and Queen Emma thrashes away from her like a startled wildebeest, backing herself against a wall as she glares at them all.

 

“Get out!” she orders, sweeping them all away with an outstretched hand. “All of you, get  _ out _ ! Henry–” He takes the order for what it is and ushers Zelena out as she cranes her neck, hawklike, and attempts to watch the queen as the door shuts.

 

Queen Emma has her fist in the wall again before Henry can turn around, and this time there’s a gouge to show for it. She’s cradling her fist a moment later, glaring at thin rivulets of blood from where it had struck splintering wall, and Henry is horrified to see the tears glimmering in her eyes.

 

“I’m sorry,” she says, as she always does. “I’m sorry, Henry. I…” 

 

Without a word, Henry takes out the chair and puts it in front of the window. Queen Emma ducks her head and takes her seat, her eyes already on the view from the window. Henry thinks of Queen Snow’s request and can’t find the will to fulfill it now, when Queen Emma looks so lost.

 

Instead, he waits at the door until Queen Emma rises again, her fingers tangling with his for a moment and squeezing. He squeezes back instinctively, and he looks up and sees her smiling gently at him. 

 

Perhaps she is a fool for being here, if this had only been an escape from the White Kingdom, but he can’t find it in himself to resent her in the same way anymore. Still, he has a promise to keep. He ventures unhappily, “Her Majesty Queen Snow has requested that I–”

 

“It’s all right, Henry,” Queen Emma says, shaking her head. “You’ve fulfilled your duty. Don’t bother.” 

 

A part of him wants to demand how she can do this, when she’d lived every foundling’s  _ dream _ , when she’d found her mother and father and now she only seeks to push them away. When her mother still seems so invested in reaching out to her, and she shrugs off every overture. He doesn’t understand, but he won’t prod any more when she’s already so affected today.

 

Instead he slips away as the attendants file in again, walking down the halls back to the barracks and imagining what it could mean to have a mother who loves him. He’s been more fortunate than any other foundling could have been, surrounded by a palace that had only doted on him, but even then, he’d spent his childhood longing for a distant woman with a stony face. Whatever Queen Emma had endured as a child, it couldn’t have hardened her so much against her mother, could it?

 

A hand lands on his shoulder and he startles, swinging around and reaching for his sword in a single move. “Henry,” Lady Marian says reprovingly, and he drops his hand from his sword.

 

“Sorry.”

 

“The queen wishes to see you,” Marian says, a little more gentle now, and Henry’s eyes widen. Marian isn’t traveling across the palace with missives from  _ Queen Emma _ . There’s only one person in this castle whom someone as quietly powerful as Marian answers to.

 

He follows her in silence, struggling to remain calm as she leads him to Queen Regina’s quarters– her  _ quarters _ , where she has only her most private meetings– and he rubs sweaty palms against his armor and wonders what it is that he’s done to arouse the wrath of the queen. He’s never–  _ never  _ been called to the queen before. When he’d distinguished himself in one of the final battles of the war, Mulan had brought him and a dozen others into the throne room to receive the queen’s commendation, and her eyes flickering over him twice had been the most acknowledgement he’d ever gotten from her before Queen Emma.

 

_ Queen Emma _ . He remembers again the argument he’d witnessed, and he’s afraid at what Queen Regina might ask of him now. His loyalty has been near-severed in two, pulled uncomfortably toward the queen he’s been commanded to serve and toward the queen he’d chosen from the start, and if that conflict means that his loyalty is in conflict–

 

He gulps as he steps into Queen Regina’s apartments, and Marian gives him a reassuring smile and then steps out. Only the queen remains in the room, sitting rigidly in a high-backed chair that looks as intimidating as a throne while it bears her. “Lieutenant,” she says, and he stands so stiffly at attention that he can feel himself beginning to shake with the effort of it.

 

So he  _ has  _ been promoted, and even Queen Regina has accepted the promotion. “My Queen,” he says. Her gaze is on him, steady and unreadable as always, and he doesn’t dare look away. A part of him is desperate to take advantage of the contact, for some sort of connection to her even now, and he feels foolish to believe that he is anything more to her than an anonymous soldier. 

 

Queen Regina studies him for a long time, still silent, and when she finally speaks, it’s with a tremor in her voice that betrays– for a moment– some sign of a weight on her that Henry can’t imagine. “What does my wife do in her rooms when she sends out her attendants?” she asks, and Henry stares at her, flabbergasted.

 

This–  _ this  _ is what this is about? Now it’s the queen who can’t meet his eyes, who has turned her gaze to her own window as she waits for a response. Henry doesn’t  _ understand _ , can’t comprehend why this would capture the queen’s interest, and a part of him feels as though he’s been forced to betray Queen Emma when he says shakily, “She...mostly she just stares out the window.” 

 

Queen Regina’s eyes flicker and she says, “I see.” 

 

Henry’s stomach drops and now he’s feeling as though he’s betrayed  _ her _ , too, and he stumbles and says, “She also...sometimes she punches the wall. A lot of the time, actually. Not around anyone else,” he says hastily, worried that he’d somehow implicated Queen Emma in  _ something _ .

 

But Queen Regina only sighs and says ruefully, “Of course she does,” as though all her questions have been answered. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” she begins, and she turns to face him again as though she might say something else. 

 

He waits, gripped with immobility, and her lips are still parted, her eyes still trained on him for full minutes without comment.

 

At last, she says, “You may go,” and he thinks he must be imagining the way her eyes drop from his as she sits in her chair, hands folded on her lap.

 

* * *

 

The ball that night is a large one, a formal reception for Queen Snow that barons from across the land have flocked to. It’s more crowded than usual, and Queen Emma sits silently at the dais beside her mother, her face pale and her eyes directly trained ahead of her. Queen Snow is speaking, and more color drains from Queen Emma’s face with every moment she continues.

 

The tension in the room is thick, and even guards who’ve been in the castle during this whole visit are on edge, hands resting on the hilts of their swords as they glance around the room. The barons here tonight are of varying status and loyalty to Queen Regina, and Henry can feel the atmosphere getting to him as the band strikes up the first notes of music. He shifts, antsy beside Mulan as he watches the dais.

 

Queen Emma stands, ungainly and in jerky moves, and she stretches a hand out to Queen Regina. Queen Regina takes the hand and stands as well, and the queens walk together to the center of the room to begin the dance.

 

They dance as they always do, flares of light and shadow as they circle each other, Queen Regina light-footed and Queen Emma set firmly on the ground. They spin and the crowd watches keenly, only a few dancers joining them as the rest of the court examines them critically.

 

They never come up short when they’re dancing. Halfway through the dance, Queen Regina’s hair is flying free again and she’s glowering at Queen Emma, who only spins her and dips, unconcerned. From the dais, Queen Snow watches them with her brow furrowed. From the shadows of the room, Baron Rumplestiltskin watches their every move, his teeth bared into a smile.

 

Queen Emma speaks while they dance and when the song ends, Queen Regina is flushed and Henry doesn’t know if it’s from the dance or from Queen Emma’s words. Either way, she manages a parting remark that has Queen Emma watching her leave, mouth open, and then Queen Emma throws back her head and laughs in a way that evokes no dignity at all.

 

A woman steps into Queen Emma’s orbit for the next song, her eyelashes fluttering and her dress’s neckline too low, and Henry turns away, remembering Queen Regina’s scornful words about Queen Emma’s dance partners. For her part, Queen Emma never pushes them away, and Henry can see Queen Snow watching the spectacle her daughter is making of herself, lips pursed together.

 

Henry sighs to himself and Mulan murmurs to him, “Go. Get yourself something to eat. Queen Emma has a dozen extra guards assigned to her today.” She’s watching Queen Emma with distrust in her gaze, and she doesn’t look back at him beyond nudging him forward.

 

Relieved and still tense, he heads to the tables where desserts are appearing and takes a pastry on its plate, ducking into one of the quiet side rooms to breathe. There are too many queens now to worry about. He’s only  _ nineteen _ , he’s hardly meant for this quagmire, and it only seems to get deeper and more convoluted each day.

 

He licks the pastry off his fingers and wonders how long he might be able to stay in here before he’s found and sent back to Queen Emma. Queen Emma, who is unfathomable and far too open at once, a counterpoint to her untouchable wife. Queen Emma, whom he wants to condemn but can only think of her with tears on her cheeks as she slams a fist to the wall. 

 

“She is quite the character, isn’t she?” says a sly voice behind him, and he spins around and has his sword out before he even finds Baron Rumplestiltskin in the shadows. The baron raises a hand. “You’ll want to put that away,” he says, something glittering in his eyes, and Henry sheathes his sword at once without thought. It strikes him a moment later that he hadn’t wanted to do that.

 

“What do you want?” he says warily, dispensing with titles and any respect for this man who so freely disrespects his queen. 

 

Rumplestiltskin smiles, baring teeth pointed like something inhuman. “I have a question for you, boy,” he says, and he takes a step forward. Henry steps back despite himself, caught in the strange sort of sparks that emanate from the baron’s eyes. “Tell me,” he says, malice in every syllable, “What does your master do when she sends her guards from her private rooms?” 

 

If it had felt like skirting on the edge of betrayal around Queen Regina, it feels utterly unspeakable here, backed against a wall by a man more dangerous than any queen. Henry shakes his head and the baron lifts a hand, something flaring in it as threatening as his slitted eyes. “You don’t want to cross me, dearie,” he says darkly.

 

_ Magic _ . Henry had thought it was mostly a myth, the sort of thing that servants had whispered about around Queen Cora. It’s certainly not a myth when it’s sparking in front of him, flaring against his breastplate and blackening it. He straightens and swallows, but his throat is still dry. “I’m not telling you anything,” he croaks, certain that he’s going to die in this empty room without a single witness. At least it’ll be in the service of the queens. 

 

“Brave,” Rumplestiltskin says, and he cackles, a high sound that sends shivers down Henry’s spine. “Not the first brave boy I’ve met. Do you think this trifle of information is worth everything you hold dear?” His eyes glitter and his phrasing is careful, a reminder that it isn’t only Henry’s life he can take from him.

 

Henry quakes, his teeth chattering as he says, “I am– I am loyal to my queen–”

 

“Is she your queen, then?” the baron queries, and Henry is frozen at the question.  _ No _ , Queen Emma isn’t  _ his queen _ . She isn’t anyone but an instrument to torment his queen and his kingdom. “She, and not the queen who rules this kingdom?” 

 

“We are both queens of this kingdom,” Queen Regina says from the doorway, her face impassive but for the fire in her eyes. “And you have no business with this guard, Baron.” 

 

Standing in the room with them in this moment, Henry finally begins to understand just how much they  _ loathe  _ each other. Rumplestiltskin’s lip is curled into a sneer, the magic still flickering in his hands, and Queen Regina is alone and watches him with steel and more loathing in her eyes than she’d reserved even for the White Kingdom’s royalty. “Leave,” she says imperiously. “Do not approach my wife’s lieutenant ever again.” 

 

They’re at a standstill, Rumplestiltskin arrogant and smug and the queen unassailable, but it takes only a few minutes before the baron laughs disgustedly and storms from the room. Queen Regina moves to Henry at once, her eyes on the place where his breastplate is charred, and she places a hand on his shoulder, gripped by an emotion Henry can’t comprehend. “Come,” she says, and he walks with her hand resting on his shoulder, yearning for things he won’t name.

 

For the second time today, he’s entering Queen Regina’s quarters, this time with the queen herself walking with him. She doesn’t speak, but her fingers tighten as they walk, relaxing and then tightening again moments later. It’s overwhelming and frightening and comforting at once, and he nearly lets out a sob at the loss when she lets him go to sit in her high-backed chair again.

 

This time, an attendant brings out a chair for him, and another appears a moment later and offers him a chocolate drink that soothes his throat and warms him. It’s a drink he hasn’t had since childhood. Cook would make it for him and reminisce about how it had been Princess Regina’s favorite, before; and when he’d drunk it, he’d felt a little closer to the missing princess.

 

Today, Queen Regina sits opposite him, Lady Marian lounging on the couch as the other attendants scatter around the room. Henry sips at his drink and Queen Regina says, her voice gentler than he’s ever heard it before, “What did he ask you?” 

 

“The same thing that you did, My Queen,” Henry says, too startled at her tone to think of being discreet. Marian swings her legs around to sit straight, her eyebrows rising at Queen Regina, and Henry ducks his head and focuses on the drink again. “I don’t…I don’t understand why it’s important but I swear, I didn’t say a word.” 

 

“I believe you,” Queen Regina says, her voice gentling even more. It’s soothing now, as soothing as the chocolate drink, and Henry can feel himself calming. “I am sure my wife appreciates your loyalty to her,” she says, and now he doesn’t know if he’s imagining the sadness in her tone.

 

Marian clears her throat and the queen looks to her with gratitude. “It’s getting late,” she says as Henry finishes off his drink. “We’ll be missed if we’re gone much longer.” 

 

“Of course,” Queen Regina says, and she nods for Henry to rise as she does. He steps outside, dismissed, and he’s called back with a “Wait, Lieutenant,” and a flicker of something like amusement in her eyes. She reaches into a fold of her dress’s scarf and emerges with a handkerchief, and Henry stands stock-still with his whole self frozen in disbelief as the queen of his kingdom reaches out to wipe chocolate from his upper lip. 

 

The queen’s eyes are downcast when she tucks her handkerchief away, and Marian is grinning behind her. “Get to the ball,” Marian says, poking Henry’s shoulder. “Make sure Queen Emma hasn’t scandalized the whole court just yet.” 

 

He scampers off, still shaken at the whole exchange, and he thinks  _ My Queen, My Queen,  _ **_Mother_ ** , and understands less and less Queen Emma’s reluctance to know her true mother.

 

* * *

 

He understands even less when he walks into the ballroom and sees them dancing together near his doorway, Queen Emma jerky when she dances so easily with everyone else, and Queen Snow twirling around her with grim, sad eyes. They’ve fought again, and Henry can feel the tension from his vantage point even before Queen Snow says, “We would have danced like this every night at home,” with so much wistfulness that Henry swallows in advance for however Queen Emma will rebuff her. “Your father used to dream about teaching you to dance.” 

 

“I learned on my own just fine,” Queen Emma says dully.

 

“Yes, well.” Queen Snow does another twirl and Queen Emma slips, nearly tripping over her own feet before her mother returns. “You’ve done beautifully for yourself.” She beams, meaning every bit of the compliment, and Emma’s shoulders slump instead of straightening. 

 

She misses the next twist and says, “I didn’t really have a choice.” 

 

“If you’d stayed in the palace–” Queen Snow catches her expertly, swaying with her daughter, and she looks upon her with longing. There’s so much longing in Queen Snow’s gaze each time she looks at Queen Emma, so much unsaid, and Henry longs just as much for peace between them both. “David would have loved to dance with you. He wanted to join me on this trip, even.” 

 

“Mmhm,” Queen Emma says, noncommittal, and twists again, this time successful if a little too violent to be calm.

 

“He misses you,” Queen Snow persists, hanging onto Queen Emma admirably. “You were lost for so long–” 

 

“ _ Lost _ ,” Queen Emma repeats, and Henry hears the dangerous edge to her voice as she repeats it. He takes a step forward, anxious at what she’s teetering on the edge of, but she doesn’t say anything else. Her eyes flash, and Queen Snow is oblivious to it. 

 

“And now that we finally  _ have  _ you again, it feels as though we barely got to see you before you…” Queen Snow gestures around them in dissatisfaction. “Chose  _ this place _ over home. Your father has been disconsolate–”

 

Something snaps in Emma, so quickly that Henry takes a step back as her voice rises. “Are you going to make me feel  _ guilty  _ for it?” she demands, her face flushed with fury. Around them, the ballroom begins to still, dancers pausing in place at what’s about to explode. “Are you going to stand here and blame me for not– for leaving– I–” She’s wild-eyed, unfocused, and Queen Snow stands in front of her with her hands clasped together and wide with horror.

 

“Emma, of course not. I know it’s been difficult since we found you again–” 

 

“It’s been difficult since you  _ abandoned  _ me!” Queen Emma barks out, and her mother takes a step back. They’re making a scene now, Queen Emma’s voice too loud and too vulnerable, exposed and raw as she so rarely is before the court. Queen Snow leans forward, beseeching, and Queen Emma’s face grows darker still at her mother’s pleading face. “That inconvenient fact you like to pretend never happened. You sent me away!” 

 

“The prophecy–!” Queen Snow wrings her hands. “We sent you away to  _ save your life _ !” 

 

“Bullshit,” Queen Emma grinds out. The room is quiet, every eye fixed on the queens arguing in the center of the room, and Queen Emma’s voice lowers and is still perfectly audible. “You sent me away to save your kingdom. I was only a necessary casualty.” 

 

“We would have been cursed!” 

 

“We would have been together,” Queen Emma whispers, turning away from her mother. The court is caught between delight and embarrassment, their despised queen publicly humiliated with another unqueenly outburst but there’s just enough discomfort at the spectacle. Queen Emma stalks from the room with her head held high and Henry springs after her, his heart thumping as they pass Queen Regina just behind him. 

 

“That was very foolish,” Queen Regina says coolly.

 

Queen Emma’s eyes narrow through the redness. “Go to hell,” she says, and she makes it down half a hallway before she’s quaking with sobs. Henry looks back at Queen Regina once and sees that she’s still watching them, her lips set into a firm line, and he tears his eyes away from her and hurries after Queen Emma instead.

 

Queen Emma’s attendants and guards are catching up to them, and Queen Emma quickens her pace. Henry takes her cue and follows behind, slowing so he can intercept her entourage before they overtake her and see what will undoubtedly delight them.

 

He catches them at the door to her inner quarters and says, “No.”

 

“No?” Zelena repeats mockingly. “No, what?” 

 

Henry juts out his jaw. “No, you’re not going in there.” 

 

“By whose orders?” Zelena casts an eye over him, darkly amused at his stubbornness.

 

Henry swallows and lies, or is it a lie? _ I am sure my wife appreciates your loyalty to her _ had been  _ something _ , if not approbation. “Your sister the Queen,” he says, stiff and formal, and Zelena reels back as though she’d been slapped. 

 

It’s the most  _ human _ she’s ever seemed, the way the casual mask of laughter fades into something hurt and lost and alone. She takes a step back and struggles to laugh, to regain her carelessness, and Henry turns away from her and pushes the door to Queen Emma’s inner chambers open.

 

She isn’t in a chair tonight. She’s huddled on the ground, staring sightlessly at the wall, and Henry locks the door behind him and chews on his lip, waiting for an invitation he knows won’t come. But she doesn’t send him away, either, and so he waits and waits until he can’t keep quiet anymore and the words burst out of him. “I thought you were selfish,” he says, and Queen Emma looks up at him and laughs through her tears.

 

“You and my mother,” she says.

 

He clears his throat and ignores  _ that _ . “I was a foundling, too.”

 

“I know.” Queen Emma smiles up at him, affectionate but with more pain in her eyes than before. “I’ve always known.” 

 

“What–” He stares at her. She stares back, enigmatic even with tears still running down her face. “ _ Fine _ ,” he says, miffed that she won’t even allow him  _ that  _ revelation. “I was a foundling and I didn’t understand how you could push...how you could  _ have  _ a mother and push her away.” And he’s thinking about Queen Regina again, her eyes sparkling as she’d wiped chocolate off his face, and a sob escapes his throat before he can stop it. 

 

Queen Emma’s eyes widen, her face pale, and she says, “Oh, Henry,” and then he’s crying, too, stumbling to her as Emma reaches for him and wrapped in her arms a moment later. “Henry, there are so many people here who love you,” she whispers, stroking his hair. “More than you know.” 

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, because she’s still crying and he’s made it all about him. “I just wanted to say...I was wrong and I didn’t  _ think  _ and they threw you away. What are you supposed to do with...with a mother who threw you away?” Emma’s hands stiffen and loosen around him, and he’s been too harsh, it’s too raw for her, and he doesn’t know what he can say to make it better. He holds her instead, feels her shake and shake until she can take in a stuttering breath and speak again.

 

“She was a kid,” Emma says, leaning back against the wall. “Barely older than you when she had to make the decision. I wish–” She shudders in his arms and says, her voice only a whisper, “I don’t know how long it’ll take for her to give up on me. I don’t know when she’ll–”

 

Like this, weary and lost, she looks like Queen Snow at the garden wall. Henry holds her tighter, feels her again with her fingers in his hair, and he says, his voice wavering, “She won’t. I know she won’t. She loves you.” 

 

Queen Emma doesn’t respond, and he looks up at her to see that she’s staring out the window, up at the moon where they can see it shining through the trees. “I grew up here, too, did you know that?” Emma murmurs. “I was found in a village not too far from here. I don’t know how I got there. Maybe Granny was keeping an eye on me.” 

 

Henry waits, a few new puzzle pieces slotting into place. Emma wipes away her tears and smiles tremulously. “I used to hide out in the castle, too. And then one night the guards found me and I had to run. I wound up sliding right out of a passage and right at King Henry’s feet, a shivering little street urchin.” 

 

“Oh,” Henry says, fascinated at the mention of the king he’d been named for. “What...what did he do?” 

 

“He offered me that awful spicy cocoa that...that too many people in the palace love so much,” Emma says, and Henry tosses her a dirty look. She makes a face right back at him, his terribly undignified queen. “He wrapped me in blankets and read to me when I admitted I didn’t know how to read. Then he left me alone, which was the kindest thing he could have done. When I woke up, I was wearing a princess’s coat just my size and I was afraid of what would come next. I fled the palace and didn’t come back for...a long time.” 

 

“He gave you a coat?” Henry asks, intrigued. King Henry had been kind, from all the stories he’d heard, but it had been so difficult to conceive of a kind king who’d been wed to Queen Cora. 

 

Emma smiles at him. The tears are dry and her eyes glow again, bright and wistful. “No,” she says, and sits up, stretching hard enough that several joints pop loudly. “Go back to your barracks and get some sleep,” she murmurs. “I shudder to think of what rumors Zelena might spread if you spend your night here.” 

 

“Ew,” Henry says, appalled, and Queen Emma laughs and helps him up before she swoops down and kisses his brow.

 

“Goodnight, Henry,” she says gently, giving him a shove to the door as she moves toward her bedroom.

 

He hesitates at the locked door. “Goodnight, My Queen,” he says, and her eyes are warm as the cocoa had been earlier.

 

He’s still thinking about the cocoa as he walks through the castle. It’s late but he isn’t ready to return to the barracks yet, to the laughs the guards must be having at Emma’s expense. Instead, he walks alone to the courtyard, wandering around in the cool air and thinking back to Queen Regina’s sparkling eyes and to Emma’s warmth through the tears. 

 

Queen Regina had been right when she’d rescued him from Rumplestiltskin. They are  _ both _ his queens, and he wonders if their differences are, in fact, unbreachable. Emma hadn’t come to the castle to humiliate Queen Regina after all, and Queen Regina is closed off but not quite as untouchable as he’d imagined. 

 

Perhaps he could intervene, speak to Emma and make her  _ understand _ , somehow, that Queen Regina isn’t her enemy. Perhaps he could–

 

Energized with new optimism and too impatient to wait to act on it, he turns on his heel and hurries back into the castle, winding through the long hallways for what feels like far too long before he finally makes his way back to Queen Emma’s quarters. He pushes past the attendants and earns a sour look from Zelena as he crosses into the inner room where he’d been sitting with Emma before, and he raises his fist to knock on her bedroom door–

 

There’s a woman’s laugh from within the bedchamber, rich and low and unfamiliar, and Henry freezes with his fist still raised. A second voice accompanies it–  _ Emma  _ this time, cross and then less so, and then the unmistakable sound of breathless kissing as Henry listens in building horror.

 

_ No _ . Emma wouldn’t. He thinks of the women who’d thrown themselves at her, at every dance she’d danced without warding them off, and he’s ill. He thinks of Emma laughing about the idea of a mistress–  _ taunting  _ Queen Regina about it, really, and he can’t believe she’d–

 

He can’t–

 

He backs away from the door, horror in his every step, and even Zelena doesn’t comment as he turns and flees the queen’s apartments. He’s nauseous, doubled over and gagging and sobbing anew at the idea of it, of what Emma is doing to  _ Queen Regina _ , to this betrayal beyond any of the ones that had come before, and he’d  _ trusted  _ Emma, he’d–

  
He finds a room with hot water still steaming for scrubbing the ballroom and rubs at the spot on his forehead where she’d kissed his brow, wipes away every memory of burgeoning  _ friendship _ as he sobs. And he can feel his heart threatening to shatter at this revelation, for Queen Regina who hates Emma anyway, and for himself, for being so foolish a child to believe that he could love both his queens at once.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a long chapter! Don't worry about the chapter count switching to 4/8- nothing has changed, I just decided to make the epilogue its own chapter. It's all still finished and ready for posting! Enjoy!

He’s curled up at the bottom of a basket– a bread basket, he thinks, large and packed with loaves of what must be freshly-made bread– and the carriage is rocking back and forth, making him nauseous. Somewhere above him, Marian and Granny are speaking in low voices, and someone is crying softly beside his basket.

 

He can’t understand most of what’s being said– he’s young, maybe only two or three, and everything lands with the fuzzy quality of a dream– but he can feel himself struggling to move, to reach out to whoever it is who’s crying. In the dream, he knows who it is, and the sobs land on his skin like fire. 

 

He’s crying too and Marian is still talking,  _ You have no choice, this is his best chance, we’ll keep him safe _ , and then Belle says, “Henry, you have a visitor,” and he jolts awake. 

 

He blinks up at her drowsily. He’s in the library, asleep in one of the upstairs nooks where he’d slept all the time as a child. He doesn’t know why he’s––  _ oh _ , and the memories from the night before return with a crash just as Emma climbs up to his alcove. 

 

He rears back, sitting up and sliding his arms around his knees in an attempt at casual. “Is this where you used to sleep before the barracks?” Emma says, looking around curiously. “Seems pretty cozy.” 

 

He shrugs, looking away from her. “Sometimes.” He’d had a room in the servants’ quarters that had been surprisingly well-furnished, but he’d also been a child in Queen Cora’s court and had been terrified, sometimes, of being alone. Not that Emma gets to know  _ any  _ of this, not after–

 

The sting of betrayal still hurts, and he can’t look at her or think about what he’d heard again. She says, sounding a bit puzzled, “You didn’t come to train with me this morning.” 

 

He shrugs again, staring at the shelves and shelves of books beneath the alcove. Emma laughs uncertainly. “If you wanted to sleep in, I could have arranged it after breakfast, instead,” she says, tentative as though she’s just realized that something is wrong. “I’d rather sleep in, too, trust me. If my attendants weren’t hovering outside my door at  _ sunrise _ –”

 

He can’t think of her door, of what she’s hiding in her room that she’s awake for her attendants– that she’s– that she– “I wish to be released from your service!” he bursts out, and stares up at her and then back at the ground just as quickly.

 

There’s silence, and he dares look up again to see her face. She’s staring down at him, brow furrowed, and he isn’t imagining the hurt in her eyes. “Henry?” she says, her voice small. 

 

He can’t watch her anymore. He hunches back down, eyes downcast, and he whispers, “Please. I...please.” He’ll be sent away, finally discharged from the guard after all, and he’ll never have to think about last night again. “Please.” 

 

“If that’s what you want–” Emma’s voice cracks on the  _ want _ and she inhales, her tone even more uneven when she speaks again. “Henry, what did I  _ do _ ?” 

 

“I wish to be released from your service,” he says blankly, and he doesn’t look up until she’s backing away, retreating from the library with her shoulders hunched together and her hands pressed to her sides.

 

* * *

 

He eats lunch with the other guards, and gets a number of hoots when he says that he’s been dismissed. “ _ Dismissed _ -dismissed or just dismissed from Queen Emma’s service?” Felix asks, and he can only shrug. “Better to have an assignment in exile than to be forced to babysit the queen, right?” he says, clapping Henry on the back.

 

The others laugh. Henry manages a weak laugh; but fortunately, no one notices that it lacks their energy. It’s not… even with Emma’s horrifying secret, he can’t think of her as someone  _ loathsome _ . Not the woman who’d held him in her arms last night when he’d wept or the defiant daughter who’d exploded at her mother or the woman he’d glimpsed fighting with Queen Regina–

 

His stomach bottoms out at the thought of his other queen. It’s an uncomfortable position, being so stretched between loyalties, and he can only imagine how much worse it’d get if Queen Regina knew the truth.

 

It’s a relief when Mulan finally pulls him out of the crowd of gloating guards. “The queen has requested that you be reinstated to your former squad,” she says, steering him to a quiet corner. Her eyes are grim and serious, and he’s afraid of what she must think of him now.

 

“I...I didn’t…” 

 

“I don’t know what you did,” Mulan says, sighing heavily. “I don’t know what she did. She certainly looked as though she regretted the dismissal.” The  _ dismissal _ , same as Henry had told the guards. Emma is passing it off as her own decision, and Henry doesn’t know if it’s to protect him or to maintain her image–

 

_ No _ . Emma doesn’t give a damn about her image. He can feel the guilt bubbling up to join the hurt, and he can’t meet Mulan’s eyes. Mulan squeezes his shoulder. “You’ve comported yourself admirably, Guard,” she says formally, and she’s gone before he can protest.

 

He stays in his old squad, does drills with Gretel and Hansel, and he watches out of the corner of his eye as Felix’s squad is promoted to Emma’s guard. “Was that her request?” he can’t help but ask, frowning. Felix is a seasoned soldier, but his squad is made up of neophytes, and this is their first assignment.

 

He’s past the period where he’s meant to care about Emma’s retinue, and he drops it when Gretel says, “Apparently,” and rolls her eyes to indicate just how much thought she’s willing to expend on Queen Emma. Perhaps it had been a random choice, or another inconvenience wrought by Emma’s attendants. Whatever it is, it isn’t his business anymore.

 

He’d forgotten how long his days are when it’s just with the guard. There are drills, then routine patrolling, and training with senior guards in the evening. He’d never felt like it had dragged on and on until now, after mornings with lessons and afternoons in the throne room or the gardens. It all feels…emptier, somehow, and he doesn’t know if he’s missing his old routine or Emma challenging him every step of the way, teasing and weathering her attendants and grinning at him like they’re  _ friends _ .

 

There’s a stir in the courtyard, and Henry snaps to attention as he recognizes the first of the guards who steps out into it.  _ Queen Regina’s guard _ . The crowd parts immediately, guards separating and standing at attention as the queen sweeps out into the courtyard, and Henry keeps his head stiff and his eyes forward as she walks past him and halts.

 

She murmurs something to Marian. Marian shakes her head and the queen’s brow crinkles as she turns, walking back a dozen steps before she stops in front of him. “Lieutenant,” she says, eyes sweeping over him. “It was my understanding that you had a permanent role as my wife’s lieutenant.” 

 

“My Queen,” he says, and he doesn’t know what to respond. Emma’s fiction, or the truth of why he’s here. “I was...dismissed,” he says finally.

 

Queen Regina’s eyebrows shoot up in polite disbelief. “I see,” she says, her tone brooking no room for doubt that she knows he’s lying. He flushes, caught and humiliated, but he can’t say anything more. “Very well,” Queen Regina says, but she still stands before him as though she might say something more.

 

He looks up at her– down at her, really, but she has an air to her that exudes magnitude even when she’s small– and he’s afraid of what might come next; but she turns then and walks onward, disappearing into the gardens with her entourage. Henry exhales, and half his squad does the same.

 

“That was  _ terrifying _ ,” Hansel says fervently. 

 

Henry squints at him. “She’s our queen.” 

 

“Yes,” Hansel agrees. “And I’d walk through hell for her. But I don’t ever want to be that close to her again.” He shudders, and Henry’s surprised to see most of the squad nodding in agreement. 

 

But they’re right, aren’t they? He’d felt the same way not too long ago. He’s never felt more ridiculous for his dreams of being her  _ son _ , when she’s untouchable and he’s only another nameless guard. 

 

Forever, now, shut off from two queens, and if he dwells too long on it, he might weep again. He’s too old for that. He’s too old for...for any of this, and he’s a  _ soldier _ , not a child craving parents. 

 

* * *

 

It isn’t until the next morning when he sees Emma again. That night, she’d taken her leave to bed before dinner, and Felix had lounged about in the barracks and made snide remarks about the queen he’d been ordered to protect. “It’s like being a nursemaid to an infant,” he’d said, and Henry had smiled tightly over gritted teeth. “She sits about and walks alone and does nothing of use to us. She’s only a drain on us all.” 

 

But he’s back at her side in the morning, escorting her to breakfast as Henry watches from down the hall. Emma’s dressed in clashing colors today, a robe over her clothes that looks even more atrocious, and her attendants are still cooing over her as she attempts to escape them in the hall. Henry catches sight, between the swinging sleeves of her robe, of clenched fists that droop and loosen as she walks, and she twists away from one of the younger attendants and spots Henry with her dull gaze.

 

Her eyes brighten and she looks at him for a moment with raw hope on her face, shining as he’s trapped in her gaze. He swallows, looking away, and he slips into the shadows before he can see her face fall again. 

 

But he’s back in her orbit a few minutes later, lurking outside the dining hall where the queens eat breakfast and watching Emma hunched over as Queen Snow speaks to her. She doesn’t look at Queen Regina, and Queen Regina doesn’t look back at her, though today it’s Queen Emma who sits in the middle of the trio. Her right arm dangles limply at her side, falling below the long-clothed table, and she stabs at her food with her left hand and makes a mess of things. 

 

Queen Regina turns, midway through the meal, and Henry’s startled when she stares at Emma with an intent gaze for a moment. It’s more attention than Henry’s ever seen her give her wife, and she opens her mouth and then closes it again, placing her left hand on her lap and taking dainty, stiff bites as she returns to her prior position. 

 

Somehow, it’s all worse after that. He does his drills mechanically, gets called out twice by Mulan and knows that he deserves plenty more and is getting special treatment. It’s a relief to get sent to a patrol shift on the castle wall in the afternoon, standing atop one of the guard towers in the hot sun and squinting down at the people who enter and leave and trying not to remember how miserable he is. He catches the Lady Maleficent walking, deep in conversation with Baron Rumplestiltskin, and he feels a chill as Rumplestiltskin turns and looks up, catching his eye. Henry stares back, a new prickle of fear at his neck, and the baron bares his pointed teeth in a smirk at him as he steps out of the gates of the castle. 

 

Henry thinks again of Queen Regina with her hand on his shoulder, protective of a guard whose name she doesn’t even know, and he’s drifting into fairytales again, into dreams where happily ever after is nothing more or less than a family. But thoughts of Queen Regina bring him to Emma, and the wistful longing fades.

 

They don’t even  _ like  _ each other. Sometimes it seems like they might someday, that they might one day talk as they dance and find some shared ground between them. Maybe it makes sense that Emma would find someone who’d want her instead of a queen who loathes everything she represents. Maybe it’s  _ expected _ . He can’t imagine Queen Regina ever choosing companionship beyond her attendants, but perhaps earlier royals had. He can’t remember much of Queen Cora beyond the fear that had suffused him whenever she’d been present. 

 

But it’s Queen Regina, who had sworn never to take another husband, who had seemed poised to rule alone and designate an heir and never wed, and hasn’t she suffered enough humiliation without a philandering wife? Henry shifts, still uneasy in his loyalty to them both, and he pushes away thoughts of Emma being lonely– of Emma never belonging in two courts, and if she finds comfort in–

 

He  _ won’t _ . He won’t make excuses for her. Some things are inexcusable, and he glares down at the blonde head that emerges from the castle, right on time, with Felix’s guard around them in a clumsy formation. Emma isn’t his concern anymore. She’s meant to meet her mother in the gardens for their daily walk; but, of course, the gossip is that Emma hadn’t come to the gardens yesterday, and Queen Snow had left, disappointed. Today it’s Queen Snow who hasn’t made an appearance. Emma says something to one of the attendants and she darts forward, speaking to one of the guards stationed around the courtyard. Ostensibly, it’s to confirm what Henry already knows about Queen Snow’s absence, and Emma nods and walks on.

 

Something is niggling at the back of his mind, something odd he can’t quite pin down about who is with Emma, and he studies the entourage as they cross the courtyard with little luck. Something is wrong. Something is  _ off _ , and he has to force himself to turn away and remember that it isn’t his business–

 

– _ Zelena _ . 

 

She’s standing there when he looks back up, across the courtyard in one of the turrets of the castle that overlook the garden. She’s watching Emma progress across the courtyard, her lips set into a thin line, and Henry wonders, stupidly, if she’d left Emma’s service as well.

 

_ No _ . Something is definitely wrong, and he watches with rising dread as Zelena turns and meets his eyes. Her own are dark and challenging, glittering with emotions Henry can’t name, and he’s rooted to the spot, afraid. He opens his mouth to  _ say something _ , to call down to Hansel, but he’s distracted by the sound of howling. 

 

_ Howling _ , from the courtyard. The gate to the kennels is open and the hunting dogs have escaped again– but no, those aren’t dogs at all, and the dogs’ keeper is atop a structure in there, shouting about the wolves he’d found in his kennel.

 

The dogs are racing out, too, fleeing the wolves and snapping at the guards in the courtyard, and Felix is shouting orders to his untrained, incompetent squad. Attendants are shrieking and guards are shouting, and bedlam has ensued throughout the courtyard. 

 

Another prank, then, but this one more malicious than the rest. Henry glances around automatically, searching for Emma where she’s probably taming the  _ wolves _ , but she’s nowhere to be found.  _ Good _ . She walks alone in the garden, which means she’s safely out of the courtyard during this mess, and as long as someone is stationed outside the garden, it’ll be fine.

 

But no one is there, and Henry thinks instead,  _ Queen Regina would put them all to death for this disaster,  _ and runs downstairs to help his fellow guards. It’s  _ not  _ about Emma, he’s determined to believe that, and he pushes past Hansel and dives into the fray below him, charging for the garden.

 

“Henry!” It’s Mulan, panting as she fights off a wolf near the entrance to the garden. “Get in there, go see if she’s–” 

 

It’s the panic in Mulan’s eyes that finally makes Henry  _ understand _ , this isn’t a prank or bedlam, this is a  _ diversion _ –

 

_ –Emma– _

 

He’s shoving through the grassy wall of the garden in an instant, choking on his own breath and terrified for his queen. Oh, god, if she’s been hurt after he’d  _ abandoned  _ her...he’ll never forgive himself any of this. He’s been a  _ fool _ , selfish and stupid and if Emma’s paid the price...  His sword is out but it isn’t  _ enough _ , not if someone is in there, not if Emma might be–

 

Emma’s standing in front of a bench in the inner garden, and there are two bodies on the ground around her. Mulan skids to a halt behind Henry and curses at the sight, and Emma turns, her face pale and an alarming red stain spreading across her stomach. She’s clutching her sword in one hand, the other at her abdomen, and she says shakily, “I think I’ve ruined the hydrangeas. My wife will never forgive me,” as Henry lunges forward to support her. 

 

He’s  _ angry  _ at her, he’s furious and betrayed, and all he can feel is absolute despair that he hadn’t been there when she’d needed him. “Your Majesty,” Mulan is saying, holding up Emma’s other side. “We have to get you to the healer. You’re losing too much blood.” 

 

“What, this? You should see the other guy,” Emma says, but she’s speaking roughly, her words uneven, and Henry slides an arm around her waist and feels her trembling against him.

 

Her attendants finally skid into the garden and come to a halt, their faces losing color as they gape at Emma. Zelena is in the center of the group, and she charges forward, reaching a hand out to the queen. “Your Majesty, we–” 

 

“I’m not going to a healer,” Emma says to Mulan, ignoring her attendants. She straightens, the trembling stopped. “I shall expire right here, disemboweled. I cannot go on.” 

 

“Persuasive,” Mulan says dryly, propelling them forward a bit more roughly. 

 

Emma lets out a yelp. “Too fast!” she says, and promptly trips over her own shoes. Henry keeps her upright, chagrined and suffering an intense amount of secondhand embarrassment. “That  _ hurts _ ! I’m dying and you would seek to finish the job?” 

 

“Wouldn’t we all,” one of the attendants mutters. Zelena snickers. 

 

Henry, his guilt and fear faded, hisses in Emma’s ear, “Can you at least  _ pretend  _ to have some dignity?” 

 

They reach the courtyard, Emma hobbling between them. The dogs are contained; the wolves are slain or gone. The guards have converged on Felix’s squad, a half-dozen new recruits terrified as they’re rounded up and shoved into walls. “Take them down to the dungeons,” Mulan orders, leaving Henry to support Emma alone. She’s groaning theatrically at every step, complaining as her attendants roll their eyes and Henry resists the urge to bang his head against the wall in frustration.

 

“The dungeons?” he says, distracted as Felix is dragged away. “For…?” But of course, the queen being  _ stabbed  _ because they’d been so easily distracted is no less than treason. Felix’s eyes are pained, dull and without hope for any mercy, and the other guards do their duty as Mulan watches grimly. 

 

Emma, meanwhile, is staring at the stairs to the upper level of the castle in mounting horror. “Can’t I just be taken to a table somewhere and die in peace?” 

 

“You’re impossible,” Henry grunts, half-dragging her until she stumbles with him. 

 

“Is that why you left me?” Emma says, forgoing her moaning to fix him with a penetrating look. He shrugs, already weary of her and feeling very foolish about how afraid he’d been, and he shifts his shoulders so she can stagger up the stairs.

 

They make it to the landing halfway up to the second floor when there’s a commotion behind them and Queen Snow comes tearing up the stairs, eyes wide with panic. “ _ Emma _ ,” she breathes, and Emma flinches against Henry as her mother seizes her shoulders. “Oh, god, Emma, this place is  _ toxic _ , this place is trying to  _ kill  _ you, can’t you–” She’s near tears, whatever resentment there might have been from the night before gone. “Please, Emma, I want you to be  _ home _ –” 

 

The attendants and the newest set of guards are watching, caught between hilarity and discomfort. Henry only feels the latter, and the uncomfortable awareness that Queen Snow might not be wrong this time. Emma, pale and almost limp, doesn’t react to her mother at all.

 

Henry interjects, conscious that there  _ is  _ some kind of injury to take care of, “We need to get her to her rooms. The doctor will already be there.” 

 

“Of course,” Queen Snow says, and she takes Emma’s other side, winding an arm around her back to support her. Emma doesn’t protest, leaning into them both and staring at the stairs as she ascends.

 

Perhaps it’s because of that and the general commotion around them that she doesn’t see when Queen Regina appears at the top of the staircase with attendants still trailing behind her, descending swiftly and silently to Emma. Emma, eyes still fixed on the ground, doesn’t notice her until Queen Regina reaches out to touch her face and Emma springs back, startled.

 

Queen Regina snatches her hand back as though she’d been burned, her face unreadable. Queen Snow is angling herself in front of Emma, protective, and Emma is still staring at the ground. The attendants are silent, the usual clanging and stomping of the guards suddenly still as everyone waits, and Henry doesn’t know which queen he feels the most compassion for in that moment.

 

Queen Regina takes a step back, retreating up the stairs under Queen Snow’s glare. Henry hangs on to Emma, almost instinctively prepared as she suddenly moves. Forward, of course forward, and she twists past her mother with the slightest exhale of pain and reaches for Queen Regina instead. Henry angles himself on the stairs, careful to keep her from falling, and he hears Queen Snow’s voiceless protest as Emma lifts a hand to Queen Regina’s cheek and kisses her. 

 

It isn’t a kiss between strangers, only beginning to learn about each other. It isn’t the tentative first kiss of burgeoning love, or the stiff kiss that had marked their wedding. It’s gentle, familiar, a kiss between loving wives, and Queen Regina’s eyes have drifted closed as Queen Emma strokes her cheek, leaving bloody fingerprints behind. When they’re done, Emma drops her forehead to the curve of Queen Regina’s neck, and Queen Regina exhales as though she’s home after a long, long day.

 

Henry is gaping. Everyone is gaping, and only Henry can’t shift away, can only look away from them at the people around them. Queen Snow is staring with absolute shock and bewilderment, eyes flickering from Queen Regina to Emma and then back to Queen Regina again. Marian is smiling from the top of the stairs, unsurprised, and Zelena is glaring at Emma with a fierce hatred that she doesn’t bother to mask. 

 

Emma lifts her head up, returning her hand to Queen Regina’s cheek, and neither of them have noticed their entourage yet. “My beautiful queen,” she murmurs, that rough voice she has around Queen Regina ever more pronounced. “Everyone is staring at you, and I can’t blame them. I’m afraid I’ve scandalized our companions.” 

 

Henry, still gaping, remembers to glower at her instead as Queen Regina’s head jerks up and she glares at everyone in attendance. Mouths snap shut and guards and attendants shift, looking desperately for something else to do. Zelena ducks her head, staring at the ground with her jaw clenched.

 

Queen Regina’s eyes land on Queen Snow’s, the other queen still stunned and at a loss, and she returns to Emma with her gaze more muted. “They said you were dying,” she says, eyes narrowed. 

 

“I am,” Emma protests, falling right back into the dramatics of earlier. “I’m at death’s door. I’ve been just about cleaved in two. It’s a wonder I’m still standing. My only comfort is that the last image I see will be of you, looking down at me in disdain.” 

 

Queen Regina quirks an eyebrow. “The usual, then. Shall I summon a stretcher?” 

 

Emma snorts. “I’d rather bleed out right here.” 

 

* * *

 

They manage to bring Emma to her quarters at last, Queen Regina standing over the suddenly muted attendants and watching in silence as Marian rubs at the bloodstain on her cheek with a wet cloth. It only smears it more, and Queen Regina pulls away as Merlin lays Emma onto her bed and peels her shirt up. 

 

There’s a collective gasp. Emma, for all her moaning and complaining, had succeeded in persuading everyone around her that the wound had been inconsequential; only now does Henry realize in dawning horror that the theatrics had been designed for them to think exactly that. The sword had pierced her gut and sliced a swath across it, splitting her abdomen in a nasty-looking wound. She may not be disemboweled, but it’s frighteningly close, and Henry has no idea how she’d managed to climb the steps in this state.

 

He peeks up at Queen Regina, sees her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line. She knows exactly what Emma had been doing as well, and she’s furious about it, enough so that Henry’s afraid for Emma’s safety even after witnessing...whatever that had been on the stairs.

 

_ Whatever it had been _ . Henry doesn’t  _ understand _ , doesn’t know how Emma can kiss her wife as though she’s in love with her but still entertain a mistress in her bedroom. Henry has misjudged her, somehow, or Emma’s been hiding a side of herself that is considerably more unpleasant than he’d ever imagined. He struggles to find his own fury, but all he can manage in his muddled mess of emotions is fear for Emma as Queen Regina stands over her, livid.

 

Merlin is quiet, circumspect. Henry doesn’t know him as well as he knows those from the lower floors of the castle; but he knows that he’s rumored to be far more than a simple physician, and he had made his home in the castle by choice and by invitation, just weeks after Queen Cora had been ousted. He looks at the wound now with calm concern, and he opens his mouth to speak as Marian eyes the wound critically and says, “It’s not that bad.” 

 

“ _ What _ ?” Emma says, outraged. “It is too that bad!” 

 

Merlin’s lips twitch. “I’ve seen far worse. Today, even.” He exchanges a glance with Marian. “What did you do, trip on a clothespin?” 

 

“I…” Emma sputters. “I didn’t–” 

 

“She  _ would _ ,” one of the attendants mutters, and there’s a snicker from another who isn’t Zelena. Zelena is still lurking in the shadows, her face a mask of fury, but as her anger rises, Queen Regina’s lessens. Marian has succeeded. The mood is lifted, and Queen Regina’s lips set in a less murderous line.

 

“A waste of my talents, really,” Merlin mutters, but his hand is gentle as he sweeps it over the gaping line in Emma’s gut. He presses two fingers to either side of the wound, a silvery magic emerging from them to stitch it together, and Emma sucks in a breath and seeks out Queen Regina’s eyes as she lies immobile on the bed.

 

Queen Regina’s face is colorless, whiter than it should ever be, and Henry springs across the room and nearly knocks over an attendant to put a hand on her back. She leans heavily against him, the second queen today he’s supporting, but she doesn’t tear her eyes away from Emma. 

 

Emma’s jaw is clenched and Queen Snow moves forward, hovering over her bed until Marian murmurs something in her ear and she backs away. Merlin moves methodically, stitch by stitch of magic, and Emma’s head falls back weakly and she stares at the ceiling in unspoken agony.

 

“She’ll need a personal guard,” Queen Regina says. “Day and night. I don’t want her so much as sitting up without supervision.” 

 

Henry doesn’t realize she’s talking to him until she’s straightening and turning to look at him. “Lieutenant?” she says, and he looks down, another overwhelming burst of guilt blossoming in his stomach.

 

There’s no rebuke in her voice, but she knows it as well as he does; if he hadn’t fled, if he’d been there when Emma had gone into the garden, he wouldn’t have been distracted by the wolves. He’d have fought with her and she wouldn’t be lying here right now. He’s no better than Felix and the others, and he shouldn’t be standing here in this room right now as though he belongs here. 

 

“Perhaps Commander Mulan herself,” Marian says delicately, eyes moving from Henry to Queen Regina. 

 

“Commander Mulan is fortunate she isn’t with her men, awaiting execution at dawn for her carelessness,” Queen Regina barks out, and Marian says, “ _ Regina _ ,” as Emma struggles in her bed to sit up.

 

Henry stumbles backward, the confirmation of the guards’ fate hitting him harder than he’d thought it would. There’s something ferocious about Queen Regina like this, unyielding and as terrifying as her guards believe her to be, and he’d known they’d be locked up and punished but hadn’t truly registered– _immediate_ _execution_ , for failing at their jobs. 

 

“Regina,” Emma says, and Merlin presses her down again. “Regina, don’t–” 

 

“ _ I will do what I deem necessary _ ,” Queen Regina thunders, and the room falls silent. Henry flattens himself against the wall, afraid of her as he hasn’t been in a long time, and Emma’s eyes flicker to him. Queen Regina follows her gaze and Henry stares up at her, frightened.

 

She stares at him for a long moment, wordless but her eyes trapped and uncertain, and Merlin says, “Done,” and steps back. Emma falls back with a groan, and Queen Regina finally tears her eyes away from Henry to return to her.

 

Queen Snow is already at Emma’s bedside, scanning her face and speaking urgently to her, and Queen Regina stands stiffly beside Henry instead. “I’ll do it,” he says, stricken by the uncertainty on her face, and she turns back to him. “I’ll...if My Queens will have me...I’ll stand watch over–” He looks to Emma, unsure of what the right term is to address any of them, and Queen Regina touches his arm.

 

“Thank you,” she says, her voice strained, and the anger has faded from it. She watches Queen Snow for another moment, and Henry sees Emma’s gaze meet hers past her mother’s. There is a protracted pause, the queens locked in a silent conversation, and Queen Regina exhales softly and says, “I will take my leave.”

 

She steps from the room, and only Queen Snow misses the look of pure yearning that Emma shoots her as she goes; her pale, drawn face bare of anything but desire for Queen Regina to stay.

 

And Henry thinks,  _ why, why, why,  _ and he remembers a low laugh in this room and Felix’s resigned face and Zelena on the castle turret and he’s torn in a dozen directions at once, flailing without purchase.

 

* * *

 

Felix is dismissed, sent home with the remainder of his squad to live in ignominy. To  _ live,  _ and Henry doesn’t understand when or why Queen Regina had pardoned them but he doesn’t second-guess it when the news trickles in. 

 

Queen Emma has been ordered to rest and has been resistant to it. Merlin has to use magic again, passing a hand over her eyes until they droop closed, and Henry watches it with fascination. He’s barely left her bedside in the two days since she’d been injured. At night, he sleeps on a couch outside the room and pretends he doesn’t hear when she gets out of bed to lock the door.

 

At least there are no voices from the room anymore. The only movements he can hear are the creak of the bed, and sometimes wood sliding against the floor that must be Emma taking her seat by the window. In the morning, the door is unlocked and Emma is in her bed again, so he doesn’t question it until he hears screaming from inside the room on the second night.

 

He rolls off the couch and runs to the door, banging on it with renewed panic. It seems almost as though he’s trapped between resentment and guilt around Emma now, still so angry and so bewildered at the choices she’s made and still certain that this could have been averted if he hadn’t faltered because of them. And every time Emma’s in danger again, it’s impossible to ignore the latter voice in his head.

 

Emma’s scream is loud and piercing, drowning out any other sounds, and she must not hear him. He bangs harder on it, yanks at the door and struggles to break through the lock with no success. “My Queen! My Queen!  _ Emma! _ ” he shouts, but all he does is succeed in summoning Emma’s attendants, bursting into Emma’s inner rooms and gaping at him as he yanks at the door. 

 

Emma’s newest squad of guards are right behind them, and Henry’s eyes alight on the squad leader’s gun. “Give that to me,” he says, holding out a hand. She hesitates and then passes it over, and he takes a step back and then blasts the lock with three swift shots.

 

The whole left side of the door bursts into sawdust and smoke, and Henry coughs his way into the room. Emma has thrashed her way to the side of her bed, and he presses down on her shoulders, forcing her to lie still as she screams and screams and screams. “Emma!” he shouts again, and only then does he realize that she’s still asleep.

 

He holds her down, helpless beyond his determination that she doesn’t open her wound again, and slowly, slowly, she begins to still. A scream ends in a gasp and her eyes flying open– 

 

“Henry,” she says thickly, staring up at him. She turns onto her side, her eyes sweeping around the room for a moment in confusion before they return back to him. Merlin’s magic has worn off, it seems, because she’s shivering and wide awake when she says, “You’re here.” 

 

“I’m here,” he says, biting his lip as the awkwardness sets in. They haven’t talked alone since he’d left her service, and he doesn’t know what to say now. He wonders if she blames him, too, for the attack, and he ducks his head and looks away.

 

“Henry,” Emma repeats, and she sounds fragile and helpless. He can’t look her in the eye, and when she reaches for him, he shifts away. “I don’t…”

 

Her voice trails off. Someone else is striding into the room, clad in only a dressing gown but wearing it as though it’s a royal garment.  _ Queen Regina _ , her attendants and guard both absent. Emma raises her face to greet her, and Queen Regina says, “Lie. Down.” Emma sinks back down, pouting. 

 

But there is gentleness in Queen Regina’s touch when she sits down on the bed beside Emma, and Henry slips out of the way and hurries to the door. He pauses in the doorway, watches as Queen Regina reaches for a cloth and dabs at Emma’s brow, watches as Emma closes her eyes and holds Queen Regina’s palm against her cheek. Queen Regina leans over to brush kisses against Emma’s eyelids, and Emma’s tears slide from behind them and stain her face.

 

Hastily, Henry closes the door to the room, standing guard in front of it so he blocks the part he’d put a hole into. The attendants all look disappointed at the loss of gossip material; except for Zelena, who only looks disgusted and livid again.

 

But that gossip doesn’t leave the attendants, not even after Queen Regina exits again, and Queen Regina doesn’t return after that, even as well-wishers flood Emma’s rooms.

 

There are a surprising number of well-wishers, actually. Rumors of what had happened on the stairs abound, and the assassination attempt seems to have won over some of Emma’s greatest opponents. Granny vets each visitor and allows in only a few, but they each speak briefly with Emma and there are no incidents. 

 

There are a number of barons who visit, making shifty comments under their breath. Emma blinks at them, glassy-eyed, and doesn’t react to any of their sly offerings. Mulan steps in, to Henry’s surprise, and admits somberly that she owes Emma a debt for sparing Felix and the others. They speak for a long time, the door shut and Henry forced to stand guard outside it, and when Mulan leaves, she’s smiling to herself.

 

Maleficent comes, to Henry’s astonishment, and Emma sees her without question. He stands guard inside the room for that one, but all Maleficent does is hold Emma’s hand and seem apologetic. Emma smiles briefly at her as though they’ve reached some silent understanding, and Henry clears his throat and ejects the baroness after only a few minutes.

 

The greatest surprise visit is a girl Henry recognizes from the kitchens, wearing her best clothes and flushing when she asks to enter.  _ Ella _ , who’d been sprinkling sand in Emma’s food and whose negligence might have ended in Emma’s death. She shifts from side to side and Granny says, “Absolutely not,” which means that the story of Emma’s visit had traveled upstairs, somehow. 

 

But another voice comes from behind them, drowsy with sleep. “No, let her in,” Emma says, and Ella flushes again and sits beside Emma with her knees knocking together. She talks quietly, glancing back at the suspicious eyes on her, and Emma takes her hand in hers, seeing more than Henry ever would, and says gently, “How far along are you?” 

 

Ella drops her head and sobs, and Henry averts his eyes as she stumbles through a story of a baron’s son, a night in disguise, and now a baby without any options. Emma listens in silence, her eyes grave, and she gives her quiet advice and makes her promise to be in touch with any issues. “The child won’t be the first to grow up in this castle,” she murmurs, and when Ella leaves, Henry peeks over at Emma and finds her eyes on him, lost in thought.

 

There are new visitors every day, and Marian and Merlin each come by a half dozen times throughout. But still, never once beyond that screaming episode at night, does Queen Regina visit.

 

Queen Snow wrings her hands and mutters, “I don’t  _ understand _ ,” and no one can offer her a response. “I thought Regina might have loved her,” she says dismally. “For a moment there–”

 

“Regina is a very private woman,” Granny says. She’s on Henry’s couch, waiting for the next time Emma wakes, and she seems the only one who can calm Queen Snow. “We can only speculate on how she might feel.” 

 

“But you know,” Queen Snow says, her eyes suddenly sharp. “Don’t you?” 

 

Granny can only shrug. “I’ve been looking after both of you for a long time,” she says vaguely. “It wasn’t so long ago that Regina was just a young girl forced to wed your uncle.” 

 

“I thought…” Queen Snow joins her on the couch, leaning forward on her knees. “I thought she would be like a daughter to me, then, a princess liberated from Cora and brought to safety.” Her eyes cloud over, moving somewhere distant. “I was so glad my uncle had found companionship again– that this girl could somehow relieve the grief I’d felt for so long–” Her eyes flicker to Emma, asleep in her bed. “But I don’t think I understood much of anything about her, did I?” 

 

“Perhaps not,” Granny says, and when Henry looks up, they’re both watching him. He keeps his face stiff, uncomfortable beneath their gazes, and returns to Emma’s bedside.

 

Emma’s eyes are open, though she doesn’t move. Her eyes are heavy and lidded over, the exhaustion of healing still weighing on her, and when she shifts, it’s only noticeable to Henry when her hand lands on his. “Henry,” she breathes.

 

“I’m here,” he assures her, and she closes her eyes again and returns to slumber.

 

It comes as a surprise that night, after Queen Snow has finally been coaxed back to her guest quarters and Emma is whimpering in her bed, when there’s a rush of movement and silence from the attendants and Queen Regina enters the room at last.

 

Merlin and Marian flank her on either side. She sweeps into the room as though she owns it, her face haughty and her shoulders stiff, and Emma wakes as though she’d been summoned by her wife and blinks sleepily up at her. “Regina,” she says, attempting to sit up.

 

“Move from that spot and I’ll have you shackled,” Queen Regina says darkly. Emma heaves a sigh and slumps back down. 

 

Merlin rests his hand on her forehead. “Her fever is gone,” he pronounces. “But she’s developing a resistance to my sleep aids. We’ll have to look to other methods to keep her in place.” 

 

“I thought the shackles were a good idea,” Marian says, amused. Emma groans again and reaches up to cover her eyes. Immediately, she begins to tremble, and Merlin lifts her sheet to examine the wound and gasps.

 

“What? What is it?” Queen Regina says, her voice strident. Henry takes a step back, his brow creasing with worry. Merlin has been in twice a day to examine Emma and has been certain she’s been healing, and he’s never–

 

“The wound has reopened,” Merlin says, frowning. “That’s impossible.”

 

Queen Regina sucks in a breath. “Has she been moving around?” she demands, and Henry quakes under the force of her glare.

 

“No. No, not at all. She hasn’t left this bed–” 

 

Merlin clears his throat. “The wound was sealed with magic,” he says. “It couldn’t have reopened with anything less than a counter to my magic.” He closes his eyes, tracing the stitches of skin. “Something was here. Someone…” 

 

“No one’s been here,” Henry says hastily. “No one Granny hasn’t vetted first. It’s just been guards and attendants and Queen Snow, mostly.”

 

“Attendants,” Queen Regina repeats, and her voice is deathly soft. “Merlin, can you re-stitch the wound?” He’s already crouched over Emma, calling forth more magic until he’s surrounded by an indistinct silvery cloud. “Summon my sister into this chamber,” she says, and her silent guard moves.

 

Zelena is batting them off when she’s dragged into the room, snapping threats and hissing, “I don’t need to be  _ pulled _ , I’m not–” She sees Queen Regina, flashing eyes and danger, and she smiles thinly. “My Queen,” she says, and it sounds like a mockery from her lips.

 

“Don’t call me that,” Queen Regina barks out. “What have you done?” 

 

“Done?” Zelena’s eyes widen and she’s  _ lying _ , Henry can tell she’s lying at once, and she doesn’t care to conceal it. “Only my duty,” she simpers, each word thick with disdain. “As you commanded me, My Queen.” 

 

“ _ Don’t call me that _ ,” Queen Regina grits out. If Henry had been afraid of her before, he’s terrified now, the queen bristling with fury and murderous intent. “You reopened the wound. You tried to  _ kill  _ my wife.” 

 

“Absurd!” Zelena protests. “I have been her most loyal attendant.” She says it with barely contained disgust. “I’ve done everything you wanted from me, even  _ that _ . I would never do anything to hurt my queen. I’ve been her companion–” 

 

“Except when she was  _ stabbed, _ ” Queen Regina says, and she glares at her sister with fury. “Convenient.” 

 

Emma mumbles a barely audible protest from her bed, but no one but Merlin pays any heed to her. Zelena says, shaking her head, “I was right behind her in the gardens. She took a wrong turn–” 

 

“Liar,” Henry says, and all eyes in the room swing to him. He flushes. He’d been holding onto what he’d seen, unsure if it had been anything at all to report and afraid to condemn someone else as Felix nearly had been, but the blatant  _ lie _ to Queen Regina is… “I saw you from my guard tower. You were watching the gardens from a turret when the assassins came.” 

 

“And what do you know, foolish boy?” Zelena snarls, yanking herself away from the queen’s guards. “What do any of you know?” 

 

“Zelena,” Queen Regina says, and she’s still shaking with suppressed rage, two women on the verge of combustion. Marian has stepped out of the fray, back toward Merlin and Emma, and it’s only the sisters in the center of the room, surrounded by guards and hapless attendants. “I pardoned you even after you continued to spy for Mother. I gave you chance after chance– I elevated you where I could, and you–”

 

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Zelena bites out. “Thank you, My Queen, for elevating your lowly servant despite her failings. Thank you for deigning to  _ remember  _ me after you returned, My Queen.” 

 

“I’m not your queen!” The words tear from Queen Regina’s throat, hoarse and furious. “I’m your sister!” 

 

Zelena rears up, eyes flashing. “Yes! Yes, you are! And when  _ that woman _ –” She jabs a finger at Emma, prone on the bed and barely conscious, eyes dark with the same hatred as before. “Every night, Regina. Nearly every night listening outside her door as she  _ made a fool of you _ with whatever entertainment she’d smuggled into her room.” 

 

Queen Regina’s mouth closes, the fury fading into confusion, and Henry stares in horror. “Every night, your wife humiliated you in front of her attendants with her  _ mistresses _ , and you never suspected.” Zelena clenches her fists. “Yes, I sent the assassins. If you were too  _ lovesick  _ to protect yourself, I had no choice but to protect you. And if I’m executed for it, at least I die giving you the  _ truth _ .” She tosses her hair, flames of orange in the muted brown of Emma’s bedchamber, and she stands tall and angry and proud.

 

She’s a near-murderer, a saboteur and a traitor; but suddenly, Henry can only stare at her in compassion. He’d thought of her as an agent of chaos, as a bitter sister desperate to wound anyone in her path. Like this, motivated by what must be love for Queen Regina, she is a figure far less vile than ever before. 

 

_ Queen Regina _ . She’d kissed Emma, had looked at her as though she’d loved her.  _ If you were too lovesick to protect yourself–  _ And Emma had returned the favor with betrayal, and Henry feels a surge of protectiveness toward them both, who’d been somehow so twisted that it had all gone wrong.

  
Queen Regina stands, stock-still at her sister’s revelations; and when she speaks, it’s with a strangled sort of voice that sounds like nothing Henry’s ever heard from her before. “Take her to the dungeons. Execute her at dawn,” she orders, and her voice evens out, as her face is drawn into new, stony lines that don’t quite reach her eyes. She looks– for the first time since she’d returned from the White Kingdom a decade ago, she looks very young. “I will take my leave,” she says formally, and she walks from Emma’s chambers without another word or look back.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haven't had a chance to reply to last chapter's reviews yet but I appreciate each and every one! I hope you enjoy this one :)

“Henry.  _ Henry _ .” He’s dreaming again, this time stumbling around the kitchens on chubby legs as a girl catches him. He can’t see her face, but her pretty dress is covered in flour and she’s laughing helplessly and calling his name with increasing urgency. 

 

“ _ Henry _ !” He opens his eyes to blue-green eyes centimeters away from his, urgent as Emma shakes him by the shoulders. “You need to wake up. It’s almost dawn.” 

 

“You…” He yawns, blinking up at her. “What happens at dawn?” 

 

“Zelena’s  _ execution _ .” Emma straightens. There’s a steel in her eyes that Henry’s never seen before, a grim determination that makes her look older and more dangerous. The attendants are already milling around the room, their heads bowed and Emma dressed, for once, in clothes that fit and match. They might not have liked Zelena, but her arrest has shaken them enough to behave. “Whatever Merlin’s been drugging me with, it just wore off. We don’t have much time.” 

 

“We’re  _ attending the execution _ ?” Emma has borne all of Zelena’s humiliations with remarkable aplomb until now, and Henry stares at her in shock. He might not have believed that she’d commit to vengeance before, but now she walks with grim purpose, her hand pressed to her abdomen and her eyes dark and tense. “Emma– My Queen–” 

 

“Emma,” Emma corrects him, and she sounds distant and detached, falling into formal tones. “If you choose to remain here, I will go alone.” 

 

“I’m not  _ leaving you alone _ , you shouldn’t be moving at all,” Henry protests, grabbing his breastplate from the table beside the couch and fastening it back on. “I just don’t think Queen Regina would want you to be–” 

 

“I think I know well enough what Queen Regina wants,” Emma says sharply, and she looks ashamed when Henry stares at her, but doesn’t apologize.

 

She leads the way as Henry and her entourage trail behind her. It isn’t dawn yet, and they still have at least an hour or two before the execution. Emma turns at the castle courtyard, where the execution would be carried out, and leads them instead down a staircase to the dungeons. 

 

“Emma.  _ Emma _ ,” Henry says, and he doesn’t know why he’s so frightened. Maybe for Zelena, who’d been no one’s friend but had been a person he  _ knows _ , who’d lurked in the kitchens same as he before Queen Regina had returned from the White Kingdom. Maybe because he’s never seen Emma like this, so cold and removed, as though she’s preparing herself to do something unforgivable. 

 

Snakes in her bed. Mismatched clothing. The hunting dogs incident and a dozen sly mockeries disguised as simpering. And finally, two murder attempts. Maybe Emma has kept it all pent up, has tried to conceal her building resentment until it had imploded tonight. No one here would blame her for whatever she’s planning, though Henry feels the  _ wrongness  _ with every step.  _ Wrong _ . This isn’t Emma as he knows her.  _ Wrong _ . Zelena had only been as outraged as Henry at…

 

_ Wrong _ . 

 

He swallows and follows Emma, who is limping down the stairs with a hand pressed to her stitches. “Are you...are you sure you can do this?” 

 

She misunderstands, or takes it to be hostile when it  _ isn’t _ , and she turns and stares at him with those distant eyes and says, “Am I not the queen?” 

 

They make it to the bottom of the stairs, where a guard looks at them askance and takes them to Zelena’s cell with reluctance. Zelena is awake, sitting against the wall with her knees up and her arms folded, and she looks at them with blank eyes that turn wide with frightened surprise when she catches Emma’s gaze.

 

“Zelena,” Emma says, her voice strained.

 

There’s a shout and a clatter from the next hall, and Mulan rushes around the corner, accompanied by a full squad of guards. “Your Majesty–” she says, breathless, eyes flickering from Zelena to Emma. Henry knows that Zelena and Mulan are...sort of friends, if that, and he feels sick again. Whatever kind of punishment Emma has in mind for Zelena, Mulan doesn’t have to witness it. Mulan falters at the look in Emma’s eyes. “You should be resting.” 

 

“I’m really done with resting,” Emma says, and she nods to the dungeon guard. He unlocks the door uncertainly, looking first to Mulan and waiting for her tired approval, and Emma steps into the cell and crouches in front of Zelena. A hand flies out and Henry says, “ _ Wait! _ ” and it’s too late, Emma has seized Zelena’s chin and is staring at her intently, her brow furrowed and eyes dark as she studies her face. 

 

Mulan says tightly, “Your Majesty, is this really necessary?” She hesitates. “It’s...unbefitting of your station to…” To taunt a prisoner, to attack Zelena when she’ll be gone in hours, to… 

 

Emma lifts her head, stares around at them crankily. “You do it, then,” she says to Mulan. 

 

Mulan looks sickened. Henry swallows, doesn’t understand, hates all of this. “Your Majesty,” he says finally, and Emma looks up at him with a stricken gaze. “I...please don’t make Mulan–”

 

“She can do it,” Zelena finally spits out, her voice hard with mingled fear and hatred. “You can do whatever you want to me, I don’t give a damn anymore. Torture me, taunt me, kill me–” 

 

“I was planning to pardon you, actually,” Emma says mildly, and the harsh lines are gone from her face, her eyes calm but opaque again. Henry exhales in a whoosh, too loud, and Emma shoots a glance his way, quirking an eyebrow at him. That  _ ass _ . 

 

If nothing else, Zelena actually looks angrier. “How dare you,” she says, wrenching her face away from Emma. 

 

Mulan interjects, “Your Majesty, the queen has ordered her execution. You can’t–” 

 

“Am I not the queen?” Emma demands again, this time with enough authority in her voice that Mulan takes a step back. Zelena glares up at her balefully, and Emma scowls back at her. “I will have her pardoned and kept under guard in her own quarters. Understood?” 

 

“Queen Regina will be furious,” Mulan says, her brow knit and her lips pursed in confusion. 

 

The grim, hollow look returns to Emma’s eyes. “I know,” she says. “But I won’t…” 

 

Zelena is still glaring at her, but there’s a flicker of confusion in her eyes, and Emma kneels down beside her on the dirt floor of the cell and murmurs something in her ear. Zelena shakes her head, her eyes wide. “No,” she says. “No, no,  _ no _ .” It sounds heartbroken, rising to a pitch where it’s more like a wail, and Emma steps back as Zelena begins to weep. 

 

She looks perturbed, and she says in a low voice, “Mulan, would you mind…?” Mulan nods and Emma turns to the stairs. 

 

Henry hurries after her, and he can hear Zelena’s wails from afar, echoing up the stairs from the dungeons. 

 

* * *

 

They make it halfway up the stairs before Emma folds over, clutching her stomach. “I’m fine,” she wheezes, hanging onto the railing with her free hand and attempting to pull herself higher. “I just...need a minute.” She sinks onto the stair, leaning back against the stairs above them and exhaling.

 

“You shouldn’t have gone down there,” Henry says, frowning down at her. It’s a moot point. Of course she should have gone down there, if she’d been so determined to save Zelena. Why  _ had  _ she been so determined to save Zelena? He still doesn’t understand, her or what had just transpired. 

 

Emma gives him a knowing look, the sort that so often appears to see straight through him. “I had to,” she says simply. 

 

“You–” It’s one of the other attendants who speaks and then falls silent, flushing at their looks. She’s the one who’d helped Zelena with the snakes in Emma’s bed, a girl named Violet who isn’t much other than Henry. 

 

“Yes?” Emma says patiently.

 

The girl lifts her chin, struggling for words and daring to speak to Emma as they so rarely have. The attendants mock Emma, they undermine Emma, but they’ve never  _ spoken  _ to her as someone they want to know. “You saved her,” she says finally. “I don’t– I don’t understand.” 

 

Emma shrugs, smiling up at the girl as though she doesn’t see the flicker of guilt on her face. “She did what she did out of love for my wife. Just as you all do. I couldn’t see her punished for that.” 

 

_ Just as you all do _ . In an instant, she’d offered all her attendants a justification and a path moving forward. They’re bobbing their heads at once, their eyes bright with renewed hope, and Emma smiles gently at them all as though she truly is a queen instead of a former street urchin sprawled out on a staircase. 

 

Henry watches them all in wonder, and he can’t help but feel a prickle of satisfaction and jealousy at it. Satisfaction, because this is finally a  _ start _ , the wonder and adoration pointed at Emma as the attendants help her back up. And jealousy, ridiculous jealousy, because it’s felt like him and Emma against the world for so long now that he isn’t prepared to  _ share _ . 

 

It’s not  _ him and Emma _ , he forcefully reminds himself. Emma had betrayed them all when she’d taken a mistress. But with every day that passes, every moment at her bedside and watching how she navigates her subjects and seeing her beaming grin pointed at him, it’s harder and harder to justify that with the sounds that they’d all heard from her room. Maybe he’d been wrong all along. Maybe it had...maybe it had been a onetime thing, and maybe Queen Regina had–

 

_ Queen Regina _ . He remembers the pain in her eyes and he’s sick again, takes a step back and lets Emma’s attendants guide her. She loves Emma. She must love Emma, and to find out about–

 

He swallows and trails after them to Emma’s chambers, the jealousy as hollow within him as the betrayal. 

 

Emma, being Emma, turns as soon as they’re inside and she’s seated on the sofa and says, “Henry.” Her forehead is creased in concern. “Are you all right? You look a bit green.” 

 

He shakes his head. “I’m fine,” he says, and then he’s seized by a wild, reckless desire, a determination to confront Emma with what he knows and demand answers. Emma will make it right, somehow. Emma will– “I just don’t understand–” 

 

There’s a commotion from the entrance to Emma’s chambers, and Henry stops, turning around as he recognizes the dark voice from the doorway. “I wish to speak to My Lady The Queen,” Queen Regina bites out, her voice low and furious. 

 

Emma breathes out and stands. “Here we go,” she mutters under her breath. Henry reaches for her and closes his fingers before he can touch her, reconsidering. She gives him a look. “You don’t want to see this,” she says.

 

Queen Regina stalks through the doorway, burning with fury, and her attendants shoo Emma’s attendants from the room. “Do you actively seek to undermine me at every turn?” she hisses, and then just as sharply,  _ “Sit down _ .” 

 

Emma doesn’t sit. Marian takes Henry’s arm and guides him from the room, leaving only a guard to stand in the doorway and block the queens from their observers. Henry is struck by discomfort, his loyalty split evenly down the middle, and he swallows and peeks over Marian’s shoulder as Emma fires back, “Only when you’re making terrible decisions.” 

 

Queen Regina seems to grow taller in that moment, the rage in her billowing around her like a rush of boiling air. “How dare you. You presume to join my court and cast judgment over me? She tried to  _ kill you _ !” 

 

“She’s your sister,” Emma says, immovable. “She’s your sister and she  _ loves  _ you, so–” 

 

“Would you pardon every murderer and traitor who looked upon me kindly?” Queen Regina demands, and Emma’s attendants shift uncomfortably. Henry watches them, sees how livid and helpless Queen Regina looks, sees Emma like a stone pillar that can’t be budged. 

 

“Only the ones you love, too,” Emma murmurs, and Queen Regina takes a step forward, crosses the room and stands in front of Emma, their faces barely apart. 

 

“You would make me a weak ruler,” Queen Regina snarls. “You would unmake me, leave me vulnerable to the wolves around me because of your foolish sentimentality. You would destroy this kingdom out of pure  _ idiocy _ and idealism.” And maybe she isn’t wrong. Queen Regina has been a great ruler because of her ruthlessness, because men fear her as much as they love her. “Who are you that you would undo my commands?” 

 

Emma’s eyes flicker from determination to hurt that leaves her small and makes Henry’s heart ache for them both. “Am I not the queen?” she asks, and it sounds less defiant now, more uncertain and searching.

 

Queen Regina glowers at her, wordless and still shaking with righteous fury; and when she turns and storms from the room, Emma’s eyes follow her as they grow wet and helpless and lost. 

 

* * *

 

She speaks very little for the remainder of the day. She refuses to return to bed, even when Merlin arrives and speaks to her alone for a long while, but she sits on the sofa and lets Henry perch beside her, her hand resting loosely on his. “I’m sorry,” he says when the room is empty for a moment and her eyes are half-closed, her head resting against the back of the couch. 

 

“But you agree with her,” Emma murmurs, her eyes still mostly shut. “I could see it in your eyes. You think she’s right.” 

 

“I think…” Henry bites his lip. “I think she might be right, but I don’t think you’re wrong, either. I don’t know. I’m just a guard.” 

 

“A lieutenant,” Emma corrects him, and when he turns, it’s to see her smiling at him, her eyes still glittering with unshed tears. “You’re the only good thing about this hellish castle.” She drops the proper veneer when she speaks to him, the polished words that she’s adapted to fit into the royal court. He’d never thought she might have been pretending at it until the attack, after which she seems to have decided that it’s one more matter not worth the effort anymore. 

 

He looks down, less than comforted by her words. “The queen–” he starts, and he doesn’t know what he  _ can  _ say, what could possibly make any of it all right. 

 

“Do you know how our courtship went?” Emma says, and she isn’t smiling anymore. Henry shakes his head. He’s heard rumors, of course, each more fantastical than the last, but the only facts anyone had known that were that they’d both returned from the battlefield at peace, with a marriage agreement in place. “I kidnapped her from her own camp, at which point we were assailed upon by both sides. I probably should have given my parents a heads-up,” she says, wincing, and Henry can imagine it, Emma making grand plans on her own and all of them terribly backfiring. 

 

“What did you do?” 

 

“We hid,” Emma says ruefully. “Regina was pretty pissed off about all of it, not least of all being shot at by her own men. We found a cave downriver and we ducked into it and… talked.” Her cheeks pink, enough that  _ talked  _ doesn’t seem an accurate rendition of what went on in that cave. Henry doesn’t want to know. “We hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And she was so angry at my mother. But...in time, we came to an understanding.” 

 

_ We hadn’t seen each other in a long time _ . For the first time, Henry wonders exactly what it had meant that Emma had been running about the palace as a child as Queen Regina had been growing up within it. “I thought it was a forced concession. They...everyone had said you had held her captive.” 

 

“She wasn’t exactly unwilling.” Emma’s cheeks darken even more, and she grins, almost forgetting Henry and her current predicament for a moment. “But I do wonder sometimes if I pressured her into something she hadn’t wanted, after all.” The melancholy returns, and she squeezes Henry’s hand in hers. “I’m sorry I...I’m sorry you’re back here, too. I didn’t mean for you to be put in this situation again.” She looks miserable, and Henry hurts for her. 

 

“I volunteered,” he says in a small voice. “I wanted to…” He’s unable to say the words, to express what Emma means to him even now, and she presses a hand to his cheek and looks at him with a quiet wonder that he doesn’t understand. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispers, and he doesn’t know why he’s saying it, what it is he’s apologizing for. He doesn’t know why Emma looks at him in vulnerable moments as though he’s a revelation, as though he’s something she’s been searching for all her life. He doesn’t know why sometimes, he imagines– he must be imagining– that Queen Regina looks at him in the same way.

 

They’re distracted by Queen Snow’s arrival. She bustles in with Granny behind her, and takes one look at Emma and rushes to her, wrapping her arms around her. “Sweetheart,” she whispers, kissing her cheek. “I heard what happened.” 

 

Emma is stiff in her arms, helpless and conflicted as she always is around Queen Snow, and Henry  _ watches  _ and sees this time how Emma folds, how she leans into the touch and is afraid of her own reaction and her body seizes up and doesn’t know how to move. Henry’s hand slips from hers, and Emma looks at him as though he’s her anchor.

 

“She can’t talk to you like that,” Queen Snow says darkly, her jaw set. “I can see this all unraveling again and I won’t stand by this time and watch it happen. This marriage was meant to–” 

 

“Meant to what?” Emma says hopelessly. “Meant to stop a war? It did, didn’t it? Why does anything else matter?” 

 

“It matters because I love you!” Queen Snow retorts. “And I can see– I know you’re angry with me, but I can see you love  _ her _ , I’m not blind. I knew you had to have loved her from the start, and I mourned it, because she’s incapable of loving anyone. She doesn’t know  _ how  _ to love, and you deserve– you deserve a wife who loves you back,  _ Emma _ –” 

 

Emma pulls away from her, her eyes red and her cheeks wet. “I have to go,” she says, her voice choked, and she flees from the room into her bedroom, the newly repaired lock sliding shut behind her.

 

Queen Snow buries her face in her hands. Granny sighs from the corner. Henry sits on the sofa, frozen with awkwardness, and drags himself up to stand guard in front of the door. He can’t resolve whatever war is brewing within the castle now, and he can’t make Emma and Queen Snow work out three-and-a-half decades of issues, but he can do his actual duty and enforce Emma’s wishes. It’s all he can do, now.

 

* * *

 

Queen Snow retreats at last to her own rooms, the shadows still dark on her face. Attendants mill around the inner chamber, daring as they never have before to venture in to see how Emma’s doing. “She wishes to be alone,” Henry says, shrugging helplessly at them. “I can’t make her leave her room.” 

 

“If you can’t, no one can,” one of the attendants mutters, and Henry looks at her in surprise, gratified at the comment. As much as others might begin to warm to Emma, he’s still at her side, and he’s relieved to know that others see it that way, too.

 

The day stretches into night, and there’s still no movement from Emma’s room. She must have fallen asleep again, worn out by the past day. Henry’s exhausted, too, when he lets himself think about it, and he leans against the door and lets his eyes drift closed for a little while. 

 

When he opens them, it’s because someone is in the room.  _ Marian _ . She stands in front of him, her hand lifted and her fingers pressed around a ring. “Come with me, please,” she says, and Henry blinks at the the ring in her hands. It’s Queen Regina’s seal, and whoever holds it speaks with the authority of the queen. 

 

But to his surprise, when he shifts to follow her, she opens Emma’s bedroom door instead. “Marian–” he hisses, startled when it slides open. When had it been unlocked? Marian steps through, waiting for him to follow, and locks the door again behind him.

 

And Henry stares in bewilderment again, because the bed is empty. The  _ room  _ is empty, except that’s impossible, because he’s been standing in front of that door for hours and there’s no way Emma could have left it. He glances to the windows, sees that they’re unlatched but much too high in the castle for Emma to have escaped through them without breaking her neck, and then he glances back and there’s a door in the wall.

 

“ _ Wh-what _ ?” A bookcase has been pushed aside, and Marian has found a barely visible panel in the wall while he’d been gaping around the room. He turns to her, disbelieving.

 

She smiles at him briefly and slides the panel into the wall, revealing a passage. “These quarters were once Queen Regina’s when she was a girl,” she says in explanation. “The royal quarters are all interconnected via these passageways. Not many people know it. I thought you might have, though.”

 

He hadn’t, and he can feel a sudden bile rising in his throat at what this could mean.  _ No _ . There’s no way– 

 

The passage is dark and quiet, and it goes on for nearly the length of the castle before they hit another latched door. Marian opens that one, as well, and Henry emerges, blinking in the warm light of Queen Regina’s bedchamber. 

 

She’s seated on a tall chair across the room from him, facing the wall and waiting stiffly. Henry sees her and understands, finally, with rising horror. “No,” he says aloud. “No, I thought–”  He’s so tired and it’s been such a long day, and  _ fuck _ , he’d thought–

 

He begins to shake, wracked with sudden guilt and despair. “Lieutenant,” Queen Regina says, her eyes fixed in him in sudden concern. Marian vanishes discreetly from the room, leaving Henry standing outside the passage, blinking back tears and his own shame and  _ god _ , Emma had nearly  _ died  _ because he’d thought that she’d been having an affair. Because they’d all thought– 

 

He’s choking back sobs, whether out of relief or shame or just exhaustion at how little he still understands, and he sinks to the ground and surrenders propriety to grief before his queen. He’s been judging Emma, furious with Emma at how she’d betrayed Queen Regina, baffled at how she could be so  _ crass _ when he’d thought they’d loved each other–

 

There’s a figure knelt down in front of him, Queen Regina with her hand at his cheek and her eyes intent on him, bright with concern. “Henry, please,” she says urgently, bent on the floor in her royal regalia. “Please, tell me what’s wrong.” 

 

He can’t disobey an order from his queen, even now, even when he can feel the ground dropping from beneath him. “I thought–” He gulps back new tears, blinks and blinks until he can see Queen Regina’s face clearly. “I thought she was…” 

 

“You thought my wife was having an affair,” Queen Regina concludes, and she stares at him searchingly, shakes her head when he gapes at her. “Is that why you asked to be removed from her service?” He bobs his head and she smiles sadly at him. “I’m sorry, Henry. It was...a convenient fiction, for a time. I wish you’d never heard about it.” 

 

He’s still quaking with silent sobs, with relief still compounded instead by shame, and Queen Regina strokes his hair and murmurs apologies to him that are impossible and make no sense. The queen, apologizing to  _ him _ , whispering his name and on the floor beside him to comfort him–

 

“I didn’t know you knew my name,” he whispers finally, swallowing back the last of his tears and wiping furiously at his face. 

 

The queen stares at him in quiet agony, an agony he can’t grasp, and her hand drops from his hair to her lap as she says, “I  _ named  _ you.” 

 

His mouth falls open again, and he’s half-rising and falling into a kneel in front of her before he can think, the tears gone from his face and his eyes very wide as he stares at her. She stands, too, takes a step back and returns to her straight-backed chair, holding onto it as though for support. “I think…” She says, and she sucks in a breath as though it’s just as difficult for her as it is for him right now. “I was still just a girl when I returned to the castle, and I did everything in my power to ensure my barons’ loyalty.” She looks distant again, and he can’t tear his eyes from her gaze. “I put aside...everything else that mattered.  _ Love is weakness _ , my mother used to say, and I believed her for a long, long time.” 

 

She’s still watching him, and something significant has passed from her to him, but he still can’t comprehend it. “You...you remember finding me,” he finally manages, his throat still hoarse with tears.

 

“I was your  _ mother _ ,” Queen Regina says, and her hand rises and falls, just short of reaching to him. “I found you and I loved you.” Now she’s the one with tears in her eyes, falling freely as Henry can only stare at her and  _ want _ , so desperately that it frightens him. “My mother was furious, but you were the one thing I wouldn’t yield on. Emma’s rooms now…they were  _ ours _ , once, when you were too young to remember. I spoiled you.” She laughs wetly, lost in memories. “I would learn each day how to be cruel, how to lead, how to be like Mother, and then I’d come back to my quarters and rock you to sleep and pretend that I was someone else entirely. Mother despised you.” 

 

“I don’t–” Henry swallows hard. “I don’t remember.” He wishes with all his might that he  _ did _ , that all of this is real and not a dream he can’t believe.

 

Queen Regina’s eyes are still distant, her face twisted in sudden pain. “You were sick once, inconsolable. It seemed as though whatever I did wasn’t enough, and the castle doctors had no insight. Mother had arranged a ball for me that night, another to sell me off to a prospective prince whom I would make king–” Her lips twist in disgust. “I sneaked away before the first dance to check on you. Mother was humiliated and furious, and she made a match on the spot to teach me a lesson.” 

 

“King Leopold.” This is all distant stories, history he has no place in.  _ How _ , how could he have been… 

 

“King Leopold,” Queen Regina agrees grimly. “He wanted a bed warmer and a girl on his arm, not a princess with a son. We smuggled you from the palace anyway. Marian came along with me, and insisted you were hers.” 

 

“I–” Henry stares at her in disbelief. “I  _ came  _ with you?” He remembers dreams of a carriage ride again, memories of a castle that had never quite seemed like the one he’d grown up in. It’s impossible. It’s  _ impossible _ , but for the bare honesty on Queen Regina’s face that makes it all extraordinarily possible. 

 

“For a time,” Queen Regina whispers. “And I trusted the wrong woman there with the truth.” 

 

This time, it isn’t a guess when he says, “Queen Snow.” It’s all coming together with frightening clarity, and Henry is afraid of where this might end.

 

“She couldn’t imagine her kind uncle wouldn’t  _ welcome  _ you, wouldn’t help protect the child his wife had smuggled into his own palace. He contacted Mother immediately, affronted at the humiliation, and we smuggled you back home before anyone could take action against you. My royal guard– Lancelot, you must know him– he brought us to Merlin and Merlin wove together a spell that would protect you from Mother. It was all I could do at that point.” Her voice cracks, the tears spilling faster, and her hands are white-knuckled against the seat of her chair. “I never meant to leave you behind. I know...I know so many people within the castle took care of you, but when I finally eliminated Leopold, when I returned home to finally  _ see  _ you–” 

 

Henry remembers the day, huddled behind a tapestry and peering out at the woman who could have been his mother. He’d been afraid and eager, yearning to speak to her and intimidated by the stone on her face, and he’d thought she might have seen him and concluded he must be wrong.

 

“I was so ashamed,” Queen Regina murmurs. “Ashamed at how I’d lost you. Ashamed at what I’d become. I didn’t...I didn’t know how to love very well. I wasn’t capable of it for a long time. I was afraid for you to see me and fear me, as everyone else did, and so I hid from you for so long.” She shivers. “When you joined the guard, I was afraid I’d never see you again. I had Mulan watch you, and I finally stepped forward to the front line then. I couldn’t let you go.”

 

He remembers days wondering, wishing the queen would come to him or remember him, but he’d given up after weeks in bitter disappointment. He’d never quite given up on the dream, though, had never once seen Queen Regina without thinking… “I wanted you to be my mother,” he whispers, and Queen Regina weeps, her head bowed before him and a dozen heartbroken apologies spilling from her lips. 

 

“Emma…” And her voice is strained, as hopeless as she brings up Emma as she’d been when she’d recalled her failed attempt to keep him. “Emma thought you might. She kept...she kept encouraging me to  _ talk  _ to you, that if you’d stayed here for so long then it might have been for…” She laughs bitterly through her tears. “She thought there still might be something to salvage.” 

 

“Emma wants you to have a family,” Henry says carefully, the only part of that declaration that he can bear to respond to, and Queen Regina lifts her face to stare at him with red-rimmed, uncertain eyes.

 

She doesn’t respond immediately, but her arms slide up to fold around herself, the queen shrinking into herself almost protectively after too many confessions. Henry had thought of her as stone before, had wavered on that only after too many encounters when she’d been so much more, and now he looks at her and sees only a lonely, regretful woman whose life had been shaped by too many others. “Emma wants more for me than I can ever have,” she says quietly.

 

And Henry understands more and more with each moment alone with Queen Regina, with each new expression of the losses and loves that had made her. “She didn’t marry you to become queen,” he says slowly. “She became queen because she wanted to marry you.” 

 

Queen Regina closed her eyes in pained acquiescence. “She didn’t want...this court that hates her, a place where she can never be alone again. She only chose me, not my kingdom, and I’m afraid it’s going to eat her alive.” 

 

He might have agreed with her once: before he’d known Emma, before everyone had begun to know Emma. “She’s a survivor,” he says, and Queen Regina– his mother, almost– looks at him as though he’s given her hope. “I wouldn’t count her out just yet.” 

  
She smiles at him through her tears, and his breath sticks in his throat as she walks to him and bends again, brushing a tentative kiss to his forehead. “You are everything I dreamed you might be,” she says, and it’s a balm after a long, long day. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still one chapter behind in reviews but I'm catching up!! I figured you'd prefer I post instead of replying to them tonight, lmao. I have been loving every one, omg, I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I do your feedback!

“I don’t know where she is,” Marian says, shaking her head. “I’ve checked all the other openings in the passage and none have been recently tampered with.”

 

“Are you certain there isn’t another–” Queen Regina tries, and she gets a quelling look from Marian that has her fall silent, rebuked. Henry blinks at them in wonder.

 

“I know _every_ passage in this palace,” Marian reminds Queen Regina. “If she hasn’t come out through one of them, she hasn’t come out at all.” Queen Regina only looks weary from her seat on a small couch in her inner rooms, her back straight but her shoulders quivering as though desperate to fall.

 

“Unless she’s lost,” Mulan points out, gentler than Henry has ever seen her with the guard. “Or someone’s gotten to her. We don’t know where else she could have gone.”

 

“She’s been running from me since she was a child,” Queen Regina says, not without some bitterness. “I don’t see why now should be any different.” Her shoulders do slump at last, her hands resting somewhere around her lap almost protectively. Henry looks away, feeling out of place in this room, with this queen who is so much more human and fallible than he’d ever understood as a child.

 

But there’s a warmth to her, to every flaw and uncertainty and weakness shown, and he can’t think about what it had meant that she could have been _his_ when she’s no longer untouchable. He peeks up at her again, sees her eyes fixed on nothing and longs desperately for Emma to return and make this right. Where could she _be_ , how could she have run–

 

“Regina,” Marian says, slipping onto the couch beside her. She doesn’t reach out to her, only murmurs, “You know why it’s different now.”

 

Queen Regina lets out a low sob. “I am...I’m so tired of driving people away, Marian,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m so tired of losing everyone I care about to...to…” Her voice trails off. Henry is watching again despite his discomfort, aches, transfixed, and Queen Regina’s eyes fall onto him. “Sometimes I see Rumplestiltskin eyeing my throne and I think _you can have it,_ ” she whispers. “I wonder if any of this is worth it. I never wanted to be queen.”

 

“Neither did Emma,” Marian says, and now she takes Queen Regina’s hand, strokes her thumb against its skin soothingly. Queen Regina closes her eyes. “But you bear it well. Both of you,” she says, and Mulan snorts. Marian only smiles, close-lipped and confident in her assertion. She straightens, dropping, Queen Regina’s hand. “Emma has not been driven away. You are not losing her. You are both too stubborn, and it would do you well to listen to each other.”

 

“I can’t listen if I don’t know where she is,” Queen Regina says, her voice raw.

 

“I do,” Henry says suddenly, a wild idea taking root in his mind, and they all turn to him with hopeful eyes.

 

When he’d seen the unlatched windows in her bedroom, he’d thought that Emma wouldn’t have been able to slip through them without breaking her neck– but he’s just as certain, suddenly, that she wouldn’t think twice about doing so anyway. She’d done it often enough when she’d been younger, hadn’t she?

 

The passage is too tight for four at once. He leads the way back through it, Queen Regina’s hand tight in his as they stumble through the dark. “I _hated_ this passage when I was a girl,” she confesses in a low tone. “I was terrified, but it was the easiest way to run to my father when I’d had a bad dream or after Mother had been by to visit. So dark and musty.” She coughs, her hand squeezing Henry’s. “Emma’s always loved the secret passages in this castle, but she never had any standards.” She sniffs and coughs again, almost a sob.

 

“I loved them, too,” Henry says, and he bites his lip and feels foolish to admit it. But Queen Regina has turned to him, eyes bright in the dark as she listens. “I...when I was little, I used to climb through the castle passages and vents and watch the guards and the clerks and Queen Cora.”

 

Queen Regina pales. “Henry.”

 

“No one saw me,” he says hastily, feeling as though he’s been scolded. “I just...I wanted to know everything.”

 

It’s still unexpected and overwhelming at once, the way his mumbled admissions can so visibly affect the queen. Her breath is suddenly shaky, and she stares at him with eyes that shine. “I know,” she whispers. “I remember...you were always in the library when I…” Her gaze is distant, mournful, and he doesn’t _understand_ , not really.

 

His hand is limp in her grip, and she lets it fall, taking a step back. “You’re angry.”

 

“No!” he protests, and it feels cruel now, when she’d wept before him and when Emma is still missing. His head falls, and he searches for a response, for something that makes _sense_ , and he’s left only with a helpless, “I just don’t understand why you never came for me.”

 

She stares at him, stricken, and Henry ducks his head but can’t quite look away this time. “I ruled this kingdom through fire and rage and an iron fist,” she says, and he sees the glint of steel in her eyes for the first time since he’d first walked through this passage. “I had no...I couldn’t afford to have any weaknesses. Every baron in my kingdom was looking for a weakness.”

 

“So you couldn’t have...me,” Henry says blankly, and somehow this isn’t any better.

 

“No.” Queen Regina shakes her head vigorously. “No, Henry, I would have executed every baron in the kingdom if I’d been able to–” She leans against the wall of the passage, her head bowed with sorrow and regret. “I returned to the kingdom and I saw you...I saw you in the throne room, that first day after Mother, and you were shaking and terrified.”

 

Henry finds his voice, hoarse and raspy and low. “I didn’t know you,” he croaks.

 

“You wouldn’t have wanted to,” Queen Regina says sadly. “I wouldn’t have wanted to know me. I still don’t…” Her voice trails off, and Henry has to strain his eyes to see her in the dark. She’s standing with her hands in front of her, her eyes dark and downcast, and Henry can’t imagine how– how the queen of all the kingdom can look so alone.

 

He reaches for her hand again, grips it in his own as she lifts her eyes to him again, and he says, “My Queen,” a bit unsteadily. “I...We should find Emma.”

 

“Yes,” Queen Regina says, and she stands a little taller when he squeezes her hand. And he might grasp an elusive queen a bit more now, maybe, and her presence beside him is warm as sunshine after a storm.

 

They unlatch the panel into Emma’s room just as Mulan and Marian arrive from the proper entrance, Mulan pushing the window open to squint up into the dark. “I don’t see her.”

 

“She’s there,” Queen Regina says, and it’s with such finality that no one objects until she’s pushing open the second window and climbing out onto the windowsill.

 

“My Queen–!”

 

Queen Regina ignores them all, and Mulan makes a move to follow. “Don’t,” Marian says, seizing her elbow. “We’re not losing two queens and the captain of the guard to that fall.”

 

“As though _I’ll_ matter much when they’re both dead,” Mulan says darkly, and Henry takes their bickering as an excuse to scamper past them, out the window and to the windowsill where Queen Regina is gingerly climbing down the side of the castle to a narrow ledge on the wall. Another figure is already sitting there, and Henry freezes when Queen Regina finally reaches the spot where Emma is sitting.

 

Emma doesn’t turn to look at her, and Queen Regina says sharply, “You’ll catch your death of cold out here.” Clumsily, she takes off her own coat and drapes it over the thin fabric of Emma’s dressing gown. Emma still doesn’t turn.

 

Queen Regina slides a hand onto her shoulder and rests her head against it, and Henry watches from above as she murmurs, “I’m sorry. I was...overly harsh, earlier.”

 

“I only ever wanted to be a puppet queen,” Emma says. Her voice is coarse and rough, as though she’s been crying, too. _What a trio we make_ , Henry thinks ruefully, and Queen Regina kisses Emma’s cheek. “You were the one who wanted me to rule.”

 

“You make a more compassionate queen than I,” Queen Regina acknowledges, and Emma laughs damply and runs her fingers through Queen Regina’s hair.

 

“What a lie that is,” Emma says, and Queen Regina kisses her cheek again. “What a lie you tell yourself. I love you,” she says, and it’s more of an exhalation than a confession, a breath she breathes like any other, _I love you_ that is as natural to her as existing.

 

“You overestimate me,” Queen Regina murmurs.

 

“Never,” Emma says fervently. She reaches to her shoulder, catches Queen Regina’s hand in hers and kisses her knuckles, her palm, her wrist as Queen Regina shivers in her grasp. But what has been said is somehow enough, and Emma raises her face at last to gaze into Queen Regina’s eyes and then higher, up to the window to her bedroom. Henry ducks away, but not fast enough. “Our Henry is here,” Emma says, and _our Henry_ feels as warm as an embrace. “Have you spoken with him at last?”

 

“I made quite the spectacle of myself,” Queen Regina admits. “I wish you’d been there.” It’s almost shy, the fearsome queen suddenly unsure of herself, and Emma kisses her wrist again. “He is wiser than you and I have ever been.”

 

“Damn right, that,” Emma says, and she shifts in her place, rocking forward dangerously before she finds her footing on the castle wall again. “We should go back inside,” she says, squinting down at Queen Regina. The queen is the least put together that Henry’s ever seen her after the grimy passageway and the trek down the castle wall. “You’ve torn your dress.”

 

“I have many dresses,” Queen Regina says dismissively. “I have only one wife.” She rises to her feet, never ungainly even on a narrow ledge with no rail, and she climbs ahead of Emma back into the castle.

 

* * *

 

The Council room is quiet, adjacent to the throne room but rarely used. Queen Regina has ruled alone, primarily, with only a few trusted allies beside her, and Henry sits awkwardly in the seat where he’d waited once for her after shouting at Emma in the courtyard.

 

Emma is fishing through her secret cabinet as Queen Regina looks on critically. “My mother used that cabinet to store the most valuable of potions.”

 

“Your father used it to store his best moonshine,” Emma says, grinning. “Something that two fourteen-year-olds had no business sampling, if I recall correctly.”

 

Queen Regina pinches the bridge of her nose, wincing. “I’m afraid you do,” she says, and Henry blinks at them in surprise, struggling to visualize the image that Emma has painted and coming up short.

 

“Wait–” And Emma emerges, triumphant, with a bottle of wine. “Ha! I thought I’d finished all of this that time I got Henry drunk,” she says smugly.

 

“I was already drunk,” he protests, glaring at her. “You just made me angry.”

 

“Yes, I did,” Emma says, smiling. “I was hoping you’d punch me, to be honest. I should have known you’d choose to verbally demolish me instead.”

 

“ _What_?” Henry stares at her in disbelief. “You...you intentionally provoked me?”

 

“Of course I did.” Emma glances at Queen Regina, her eyes soft with affection and a pain Henry can’t identify. “I wanted...I thought your mother should know you.”

 

It’s stated so plainly, _your mother,_ as though he truly has a place with Queen Regina instead of a tragedy. He still can’t process the truth– that Queen Regina had _loved_ him, had _wanted_ him, had thought of him as a son, and he peeks at Queen Regina and sees her gazing at Emma with unreadable eyes.

 

He can’t bear to think about it too much just yet, and instead he turns back to Emma, dubious at her claims. “You tried to get Mulan _executed_!”

 

“I remember that,” Queen Regina says fondly– _fondly_ , as though they’re recalling a happy event. She takes a glass from Emma, her pinky running along the glass as she speaks. “I thought I might have to send you away from the castle for that stunt.” She fixes Henry with a frown that would be stern, but for the twitch of her lip. “Emma packaged you up neatly with Mulan and gave me a way out.”

 

“Emma isn’t that subtle,” Henry objects, and Emma snorts into her wine.

 

“He’s right, you know. You give me too much credit.”

 

“Never too much,” Queen Regina says, smiling at her wife over her glass. Emma leans over and brushes her lips against Queen Regina’s, her head dropping to the other queen’s shoulders and her eyes closing in exhaustion. Queen Regina presses a kiss to her temple. “You’ve been out of bed for far too long.”

 

“I’m healing much faster now,” Emma says, pressing a hand to her stomach. “Merlin is damned good at this. If not for that tear in the stitches, I’d be better already.”

 

“Yes,” Queen Regina says, and a shadow crosses her face.

 

Emma takes her hand and holds it with her own, resting gently against her heart. “She didn’t do it,” she says, and Queen Regina snatches her hand away to glare at her.

 

“She _confessed_. You may have pardoned her, but you can’t erase the facts.”

 

“She confessed to the assassins,” Emma corrects her gamely. “She didn’t confess to opening my wound because she didn’t do it.”

 

Queen Regina’s eyes narrow. “You know who did?”

 

“I have an inkling.” Emma leans back in her chair. “Someone wanted you to find out that Zelena sent the assassins.” She gulps down her wine. “Someone who knew you well enough to expect that you would have her executed. Someone who didn’t want any loose ends.” Her feet slide up onto Queen Regina’s lap. Queen Regina wrinkles her nose and pushes them off. “Did I mention that your old friend Maleficent dropped by for a visit? It was so kind. And quite unexpected.”

 

Queen Regina seizes Emma’s glass. “You’ve had too much to drink,” she says tartly. “Maleficent has been my loyal ally for longer than I’ve _known_ you.”

 

Emma quirks an eyebrow. “Loyal to you, perhaps. Loyal to me?”

 

“What motive could she possibly have?” Queen Regina demands, and Henry looks up at her in disbelief, sees even her stony-faced guards in the corners of the room staring at her in surprise. The whole kingdom knows what motive Maleficent might have, and Queen Regina, who’s always had all the answers, fails at this.

 

Emma takes her glass back and takes a long draught of it before she responds. “Love, Regina.” And she leaves it at that, her eyes dipping down to the table with something like dread upon them.

 

“Love–” Queen Regina falters. “For _me_?” Her cheeks darken, and she blinks twice in consternation. “Absurd.”

 

“Absolutely,” Emma agrees, but she’s still staring at the table, her wine glass at her lips. “Your oldest and dearest friend. How could she not love you? She must be furious that I outpaced her.” She’s biting her lip, speaking in her formal tones again, and she looks so _young_ in that moment that Henry aches for her.

 

“I didn’t know.” And Queen Regina is gripping Emma’s wrist, suddenly, moving to her cheek to raise Emma’s face back to hers. “I wouldn’t have danced with her if I’d known,” she says, and there is nothing but earnest apology in her expression, no conflict at all. Emma looks down and Queen Regina strokes the skin of her cheek, brushes loose hair behind her ears, clasps Emma’s fingers in hers and brings them to her lips. “Maleficent, if she had any part in this, will be–”

 

“No,” Emma objects at once, but it’s with a prolonged pause of reluctance after as Regina’s eyes flash. “Please,” Emma whispers. “You’ll hate me.”

 

“Never,” Queen Regina breathes, Emma’s hands this in hers. “Exile, if that will satisfy you. I will settle for no less to protect you.” Henry averts his eyes, embarrassed at witnessing all of this, and Emma’s eyes gleam with uncertainty. “Come,” Queen Regina says. “Let’s see what my sister has to say.”

 

* * *

 

Zelena has been changed from drab prison clothes to a simple green dress. Someone had made sure that she’d been bathed and her hair had been tied back before she’d been brought to the throne room, and she looks– presentable, almost, a far cry from the woman bent over in a dungeon cell. She kneels before the queens and remains in place, her head down as she awaits judgment. It’s the first time Henry’s ever seen her bow without mockery, and he feels a pang of sympathy for all three of them.

 

The queens sit on their thrones as they always have, Emma lounging lazily as though it’s a sofa and Queen Regina with her arms resting on the arms of the chair, her back straight and her expression severe. They don’t look at each other. Henry studies them from his spot beside the thrones, and he sees what he never had before in the way they sit. It’s the way that Emma slouches, leaning against her left palm so she can watch Queen Regina, in the way that Queen Regina’s hand shifts on her throne, listing to her right as though reaching for Emma’s hand without moving. It’s as though there’s a quiet bond between them, unseeable and unknowable, and a thousands words pass into the distance between them.

 

“You may rise,” Queen Regina says, her voice hard, and Emma’s eyes are fixed on her as Queen Regina stares ahead.

 

Zelena looks up, fearful again as she stares only at her sister. Queen Regina stares back, her expression immobile. “The assassins,” she says. “The deepening of the wound?”

 

Zelena shakes her head frantically. “No. No– Your Majesty, I–”

 

“Your Majesty,” Queen Regina repeats dully. “I thought I was, at least, your queen.”

 

Zelena lets out a strangled “Regina–” and she’s sobbing silently, her head back down as she returns to her knees. Queen Regina is stepping down from her throne at once, stopped at the foot of it as she casts an eye on her sister. Zelena looks up, her eyes wild, and Henry watches the way they flicker away from Queen Regina in agony and catch Emma’s instead.

 

Emma gives her a quiet, almost imperceptible nod. Zelena sucks in a breath and says, “Regina, please, forgive me. I didn’t know– I was a fool.”

 

“Yes,” Queen Regina agrees. “Did you think me so weak that I could be strong-armed into a marriage with a woman I didn’t choose?” she says plainly, and Henry, from his vantage point beside Emma’s throne, feels his own face redden at the query. He’d been just as guilty of underestimating their queen as everyone else in the castle– of underestimating _both_ queens, and he looks at Emma’s smiling face and Regina’s patient one and is quietly glad he’d lost control in that courtyard.

 

“I thought I was protecting you,” Zelena whispers, and Queen Regina’s face– doesn’t quite soften, but she sits again and her glare is less cold.

 

“I know,” she murmurs. “And I think...I don’t think I can trust you just yet. But I want to believe you.” She presses her lips together, her gaze bare and sorrowful for a single instant, leaving her sister staring up at her with tears in her eyes.

 

“Rumple,” Zelena says like a confession. “Rumple arranged the assassins be brought into the city. I took care of the rest.”

 

“Rumplestiltskin wanted Emma dead?” Queen Regina’s voice is sharp enough to cut diamonds. “And you thought it was wise to accept that?”

 

Zelena shakes her head. “I don’t know what I thought,” she says, staring at the ground again. “He promised me...he wants to bring the kingdom to war with the White Kingdom again. He wants to undermine you, to bring enough barons to dissatisfaction that they might betray you. He told me I would be queen once you were gone.”

 

Queen Regina is very silent for a moment. “And you believed him,” she says evenly.

 

Zelena stands, finally, tall and dark-eyed with a set face. “Of course not,” she says. “I don’t–”

 

“You’ve been angry with me since the moment I became the heir to the throne,” Queen Regina says sadly. “And this is how it ends?”

 

“No,” Zelena says hastily. “No, Regina, I would never have–” She swallows hard. “I thought only of destroying Queen Emma. I knew he was lying to me. I wanted– I wanted you to _love_ me again,” she says helplessly, and Queen Regina makes a move to descend from her throne and thinks better of it, gripped with agonized despair.

 

Queen Regina’s head is bowed, and Zelena starts forward to her, stops with her eyes wide, waits.

 

Emma murmurs, “That will be all,” and guards step forward to escort Zelena back to her quarters. Queen Regina stands abruptly, walking with measured steps to the Council room, and Emma saunters after her without a care in the world.

 

When Henry slips into the room, Queen Regina is leaning against Emma’s shoulder, her eyes closed. Emma has a hand at her waist and is swaying with her, a dance that isn’t a dance at all but still has enough warmth within it to repel the cold.

 

* * *

 

Henry slips out again as soon as he can, certain that he’s been intruding for too long. There’s still a bed in the barracks with his name on it, though he’s gotten used to curling up on a sofa in Emma’s quarters by now. _Home_ is a complicated word for him now, contained within this castle but only sometimes in a room by the kitchens, sometimes in a library alcove, sometimes in the barracks. Sometimes it’s back in the Council room, two queens beside him who look at him as though he contains the universe within himself.

 

He needs a moment to breathe, and the barracks are exactly the place to do it. There have been too many revelations to process in the past day, and it’s a relief to walk into the cacophony of the barracks and get clapped on the back by a few comrades as he sinks back into his bed.

 

“Hey! It’s the queen’s pet!” guffaws one of the squad leaders. “She finally bleed out? Are you free?”

 

Henry stares at him, taken aback. “ _What_?” It’s borderline treason, and it’s the sort of thing they’d all joked about before this, the sort of thing that had spurred him on when he’d loathed Emma.

 

But now, it’s like drinking poison, anathema that has him sick with rage. His fists clench, aching to crash into the squad leader’s face, and it’s only a hand on his wrist that stays him. “Breathe,” Gretel mutters into his ear. “Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

 

The squad leader is sneering. They’re _all_ sneering, all around him joined in mutual dislike of Emma, and he stares around the room in consternation at the faces he’d once seen as just like his.

 

He’s twisting away from Gretel a moment later and storming out of the barracks, and he can hear the footsteps following him. “Look,” Gretel says, and of _course_ Hansel is right behind her. “Everyone in there knows that you’re...unfortunately loyal to the queen. They were provoking you.”

 

“ _Unfortunately_ ?” Henry repeats, irritated even at his friends’ earnest looks. “She’s our queen! Am I supposed to sit around hoping that she _died_?”

 

Hansel shrugs his shoulders once, enough of an answer that Henry takes a step back. “I thought you trusted my judgment better than that,” he spits out, and Hansel bites his lip. “I thought you’d all heard about–” The story of what had gone on on the stairs after the assassination must have become castle gossip.

 

But Hansel and Gretel are both twitching, uncomfortable as they avert their eyes from him. Gretel says, “We heard that Queen Regina has a soft spot for her. But no one really understands why she would. Or why you would,” she mutters, almost as an afterthought. “Why you’d even save her after she’d been attacked.”

 

“I didn’t _save her_ ,” Henry says incredulously. “She killed the assassins. You all know about _that_.” They avert their eyes again.

 

Hansel says, a bit delicately, “We know you follow orders, Henry. If this is...meant to rehabilitate Queen Emma’s image–”

 

“I didn’t _lie_!” Henry nearly snarls, grabbing Hansel by the neck of his tunic. “This isn’t rehabilitating anything! Queen Emma is _good_ , she’s better than I’d ever thought, and–” He sees the way they exchange glances and whirls around.

 

Mulan is at the end of the hall, Violet beside her, and he knows that they’ve both heard the entire exchange. “ _Tell them,_ ” he says pleadingly. Mulan’s face is like stone.

 

Violet smiles and says uncomfortably, “Queen Emma has requested your presence.” Henry turns back just in time to see Hansel smirk. Gretel yanks at his arm and they both return to the barracks, tossing glances over their shoulders at him.

 

Henry stares at Mulan. “Are they always…do they all really believe…?”

 

Mulan shakes her head. “That the queen they’ve seen is all there is? Of course.”

 

“It’s not as though she’s done anything to disabuse them of the notion,” Violet points out, and she flushes under Henry’s glare. “I’m not saying they’re _right_ ,” she says defensively. “I just…I don’t think one kiss or murder attempt is going to change anyone’s mind. Not without Queen Emma wanting them to.”

 

“Indeed,” Mulan murmurs, and she steps into the barracks to gather a squad as Henry grinds his jaw and follows after Violet, frustrated and dejected.    

 

* * *

 

It isn’t until later, after Zelena is set up in a new set of rooms and there is brief discussion of what to do about Maleficent, that the topic of Rumplestiltskin comes up again. Henry is back in Emma’s inner chambers with the queens, attendants milling around and watching both queens with awe, and Marian is perched on the sofa with them. “Pay up,” Emma says, holding her hand out.

 

Queen Regina shakes her head, her eyes light as they so rarely are. “You lost our wager,” she says.

 

Emma frowns at her. “You said six months to take down Rumple! I did it in three.”

 

“I said six months and no violence,” Queen Regina corrects her.

 

Emma’s mouth falls open in outrage. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. They were _assassins_!”

 

“And I’m very grateful that you stopped them,” Queen Regina says, bumping her arm against Emma’s. “But you lost the wager.”

 

Emma’s eyes narrow and she turns to Marian. “I’m submitting a formal appeal.”

 

Marian smirks at them both and shakes her head. “Rules are rules, Majesty. There was no self-defense clause.” Emma glares at her and then back at Queen Regina, but there’s no anger in the look.

 

Henry gapes at them both. “You…” he says, and they both turn to him, smiles twitching at their lips. “All the secrecy and deceit over a _wager_ ?” he says disbelievingly. There’s a murmur from Emma’s attendants, an equal outrage washing over them. _It’s not as though she’s done anything to disabuse them of the notion._ It’s _absurd,_ and he has to push past his resentment at being so deceived even just to unclench his fists.

 

Emma grins. Queen Regina has the decency to look sheepish. “It was _her_ idea,” she says, jabbing a finger at Emma. “ _She’s_ the con artist.”

 

“It was to defeat an enemy of the kingdom!” Emma protests, still grinning. “I have only noble intentions.”

 

“Yes,” Marian says dryly. “It certainly wasn’t an excuse for the two of you to sneak around like giggling teenagers when you thought no one was watching. Perish the thought.” The attendants, who’ve never even seen the queens so relaxed, are staring at both with wide eyes and parted lips. Henry, who’s gotten his fair share of this in the past day, is more than prepared to give them a piece of his mind.

 

The door opens and Mulan bursts into the room, saving the queens from his wrath. “He’s gone,” she reports breathlessly, her guards clattering in behind her.

 

The mood shifts in an instant, both queens sitting up straight and their smiles fading. “ _What?_ ” Queen Regina says, her voice low and dangerous.

 

“Gone. Vanished into thin air.” Mulan shakes her head. “We _had_ him, and then we...didn’t.” She gestures to her guards. “I’ve sent out a half-dozen squads to comb the castle and villages surrounding, but if the baron doesn’t want to be found…”

 

“He won’t be,” Queen Regina says grimly, rising. “I wouldn’t put it past him to enact some revenge on his way out.” Her face darkens. “How many guards do you have on Zelena’s quarters.”

 

Mulan pales. “Just one. You think he’ll go after her?”

 

Queen Regina shakes her head. “I don’t know anything he’ll do. I’ll take care of it.”

 

“You will _not_ ,” Emma says, and it’s the first time Henry’s ever seen her look afraid. “You can’t take down Rumplestiltskin alone.”

 

Queen Regina gives her a dark look. “Watch me,” she says, and she doesn’t turn back. “Henry, your job right now is to make sure Emma doesn’t follow me. Understood?”

 

“Yes, My Queen,” Henry says automatically, setting aside his frustration to do his duty.

 

Emma’s fists are clenched as she stalks forward, sliding a sword from a guard’s sheath and drawing it. Queen Regina puts a hand on the sword, her expression as stubborn as Emma’s. “Emma, you’re _injured_. You are not going out there to get yourself killed.”

 

“Like hell I’m not– _ow!_ ” It had been a light strike, the side of Queen Regina’s hand against Emma’s abdomen, but it’s enough to double her over, tears of pain in her eyes. “Regina, what the _hell_ –”

 

“Lie down, Emma,” Queen Regina says gently, and she’s gone from the room without another word.

 

Emma mutters something uncomplimentary under her breath, and Henry crouches next to her to help her up. She doesn’t look at him. “I’m going to bed,” she grits out, and pulls away from him to limp-stomp into the bedroom.

 

He waits for the loud _bang_ of her fist against the wall and the creak of the bed before he shuts the door, shrugging at the curious attendants. “If Queen Snow comes today, it might be best to encourage her to…return later,” Violet says delicately to the others, and she flashes him a sad smile.

 

They’re all unsure now of what to do, anxious at the conflict between the queens and Baron Rumplestiltskin still on the loose. Henry bites his lip, wondering what Queen Regina will be able to do against a magic user. If Rumplestiltskin hurts her–

 

The kingdom will be ruined, fractured. The castle will be devastated and in mourning. Emma will be heartbroken. But all Henry can think of is what could have been– can think of dreams of a girl weeping as he’s smuggled back from the White Kingdom. He’d been nine when Queen Regina had returned to the kingdom. If she’d– if she’d come to him then–

 

But she’d protected him, made sure that he’d been raised by the people around him she’d trusted most. He’d never known loneliness or pain, never wanted for anything more than _her_ , and he’d been safe and happy and loved even if he hadn’t known who it had been who’d loved him. He thinks he should be angry, as Emma is at her mother. But instead he aches only for her to survive so they might...so they might have…

 

 _Family_ , he thinks. If he’d been her son– _their_ son, the two women he loves most in the universe– they could be a family. _She thought there still might be something to salvage_ , Queen Regina had said, and Henry squeezes his eyes shut and wishes desperately that he could be out there with Queen Regina instead, with Emma by their side instead of locked away and sulking–

 

 _No_ . Not locked away. He’s an _idiot_ . His eyes fly open and he spins around, slamming the door to Emma’s bedroom open and staring in despair at the empty bed. It’s only been a day since Marian had showed him the passage, and he’d _forgotten_ , forgotten that Emma can slip from his grasp without so much as a word goodbye.

 

He slams the door shut, hurries to the secret door and finds it still creaked open. Emma is careless when she’s in a hurry, he suspects, shivering in the draft from the open window. He slides into the passage, feeling his way through and hissing, “Emma? Emma!”

 

There’s nothing but silence. He hurries on, tripping across uneven floors and whispering Emma’s name over and over again. He isn’t sure he’s going the right way, or where Emma had meant to go, but–

 

There’s a breath behind him, stale and too close, and he whirls around in the dark. “Emma?” he says, relieved.

 

Rumplestiltskin’s golden eyes still gleam in the darkness of the passage. “I’m afraid not, dearie,” he says, and a spark of red light illuminates his fingers and springs at Henry.

  
He sees yellow eyes and red magic and a jagged smile; and then he sees nothing at all.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Evie for helping me make good choices and for all her support all fic omg <3 just an epilogue-slash-prologue after this!

He awakens in a dark room lit by candles. There are no windows or doors, and Henry doesn’t know what he’d do if there had been. His military training had been centered around the assumption that he would fight to the death; there had been no time or resources to waste on teaching novices how to break out of a prison. 

 

And this prison has  _ no doors _ . He’s chained to a wall, arms above his head and legs shackled by unnatural-looking, glowing red bonds. Wherever he is, the walls are stone like those of the castle, and there’s no way in or out by anything but…

 

_ Magic _ . “We’re under the castle wall,” Baron Rumplestiltskin says casually, tapping on a mirror against the opposite wall. Queen Regina’s face blurs into being, her eyes searching as she studies the glass, and Henry feels a surge of hope before he realizes that she can’t see him. She turns away, and Henry sees Zelena in the background. They speak quietly, tersely, their body language still stiff and unsure until Queen Regina takes a tentative step forward away from the mirror, presses a kiss to Zelena’s cheek, and exits through the door as Zelena gapes after her.

 

Rumplestiltskin taps the mirror again and it follows Queen Regina, shifting from image to image as she sweeps past them. She looks perturbed but grim, determined, and she notices the girl rushing to her a moment before Henry does.

 

_ Violet _ . Emma’s attendant’s eyes are wide with panic, and she speaks rapidly to the queen with deference on her face but remains immobile in the face of Queen Regina’s rapidly darkening face. Queen Regina barks something out and Violet nods, turning around to lead the way back to Emma’s apartments. 

 

So they must have discovered that they’re both gone.  _ No _ , Rumplestiltskin taps the mirror again and Henry catches sight of Emma climbing back in through her window, looking around warily at what must have been the sound of a commotion by the entrance to her rooms. “There we go,” Rumplestiltskin says, satisfied. “They’ll soon know that you’ve disappeared.” 

 

He turns to study Henry, eyes gleaming as though he’s examining some great treasure instead of a nobody guard who shouldn’t matter at all to the safety of the kingdom. “I don’t care,” Henry says through gritted teeth. “They’ll find you. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.” 

 

“Oh, but I think it does.” Rumplestiltskin moves toward Henry, sneering at his shiver of revulsion, and pinches his chin hard. “You, dearie, are what I like to call…leverage. And I doubt either of your mothers would be willing to execute me when I’m the only thing standing between you and a long, painful death of starvation and madness in this cavern.” 

 

Henry spits in his face, ignoring the ache in his chest at  _ your mothers _ . Rumplestiltskin has no concept of what any of that means to him or either queen. “I’d die happy if it meant you were gone,” he snarls, his fists clenching together. The magic constricts around them, and he can feel his fingers beginning to numb. “Queen Regina will…”

 

Queen Regina is in the mirror now, a hand outstretched to Emma’s face as she reproves her and touches her face, again and again as though she’d feared Emma might have been gone. Henry exhales, leaving words behind as he watches them. There’s something about seeing both his queens together, eyes on each other and only absentminded replies for anyone in the world outside them, that leaves him at peace every time.

 

They’ll find Rumplestiltskin. Maybe they’ll even find Henry before it’s too late. 

 

But something Violet says makes both queens freeze, and Emma is mouthing,  _ Henry? _ and stumbling back, twisting around to look at the passage. Henry can’t see it from this angle, but he can’t remember if he’d closed it behind him or even concealed it again. He’d been in a rush, hadn’t been thinking–

 

The queens disappear from sight, guards and attendants storming after them, and Henry sags. “She won’t find you, you know,” Rumplestiltskin says conversationally, his yellow eyes gleaming in the dim light. “For all their years scampering about the castle as children, neither of them knows about this room. This was where I taught Queen Cora decades ago.” In one corner, there’s a spinning wheel. Everyone knows the stories– legends, almost– of how Queen Cora had spun her way into the royal family. There had been discomfort with her then, and what she had represented as an intruder with skin as pale as that of the royal family’s most powerful rivals. There had been discomfort with her when she’d been made queen, and she’d quashed any whispers in an instant.

 

Henry remembers, suddenly, a single encounter with Queen Cora and Baron Rumplestiltskin in the lower levels of the castle. They’d been walking swiftly, heads bent together as they’d schemed, and he’d emerged from a passage without checking first if anyone had been in the hall. He’d been only seven, but he hadn’t forgotten the way either of them had looked at him– Queen Cora with scorn and resentment, and Rumplestiltskin as he does now: as though Henry is another piece to be pushed across a chessboard. 

 

He’d shrunk back then, afraid of what might befall him; but Queen Cora, he knows now, could never have touched him. Rumplestiltskin, however… 

 

Rumplestiltskin wouldn’t have, if only because he’d make a much better pawn than victim. Henry grits his teeth. He won’t be a pawn to Queen Regina’s or Emma’s ruin. He’d rather die. 

 

“Then you will,” Rumplestiltskin says softly, baring his teeth in a cold smile, and Henry doesn’t know if he’d spoken aloud or if Rumplestiltskin had only read his thoughts across his face. “No one will find you. No one will save you. Your only chance is my safe passage from this castle, at your mothers’ discretion.” He laughs, high and wild. “Do you believe in any gods, Henry? Now may be the time to pray.” 

 

“I believe in my queens,” Henry says defiantly, and an inferno erupts in the center of the room.

 

Rumplestiltskin whirls around, his narrow eyes widening as Henry gapes at the burst of light– no _ , magic _ , bright enough that it scorches everything around it. It’s more magic than he’s ever seen, glowing like a violet halo so bright that he can’t even make out the person wielding it until he blinks enough and his eyes finally begin to adjust to the new light of the room.

 

Emma is standing at the back of the room with a pistol cocked at Rumplestiltskin. In front of her, Queen Regina stands with a ball of fire floating above her palm and her eyes burning as livid as the magic around her. “Did you think I didn’t know where you hide?” she growls. “In my own castle?” She hurls her flames at Rumplestiltskin as he throws up a shield. It’s flimsy in the face of Queen Regina’s rage, and he howls as the fire burns into his face with unnatural fury. “You would take my– my–” 

 

She turns for the first time to Henry, and Henry isn’t afraid of her, even with magic bursting around her like a weapon he’s never conceived of before. “Hold tight, dear heart,” she murmurs, her eyes awash in comfort and affection, and Henry feels the bonds holding him scorched away by something as warm as the hearth in the kitchens where he used to huddle at night. Emma hurries across the room, firing two useless shots at Rumplestiltskin as she yanks at the bonds some more and curses when they burn her hand. 

 

“It’s okay,” Henry pants, and he believes it now, now that Emma is beside him, now that Queen Regina is in front of him. They’re going to be okay.

 

Emma touches his arms as they fall free from their shackles, keeping him upright so he won’t pitch forward. “Yeah, it is,” she agrees, and she’s watching Queen Regina with open admiration.

 

Rumplestiltskin cackles again, and he’s hurling magic at Queen Regina now, ineffectual strands that sizzle powerfully but burn out before they reach her. She’s terrifying to behold like this, unstoppable as a tornado, and Henry thinks in wonder at how easily she could have destroyed every disloyal baron in her kingdom if she’d ever used any of this magic before.

 

She gathers up another fireball, this one larger than the first one she’d thrown at Rumplestiltskin, and he vanishes in a burst of red magic before it can hit him. “Dammit,” Queen Regina gasps out, and her magic dissipates in an instant, leaving her shivering and unnaturally pale. “Henry–” 

 

She’s turning to Henry as the last of his bonds disappear, letting him drop to the ground under Emma’s guiding hand; and then he’s holding Queen Regina as tightly as she holds him, his eyes squeezed shut and his body shaking with more fear than he’d let himself feel before they’d saved him.

 

“Henry,” she gasps, breathing hard as she leans into him. “Henry, Henry, Henry–” 

 

“Regina,” Emma murmurs from behind him, and he feels her hand pressed to his back, sees the other reaching to support Queen Regina as well. “Do you have enough energy to get us home? I don’t think even Marian can find us if we’re stuck in this hellhole.” 

 

Queen Regina’s head moves up and down, very weakly, and Henry feels a shift in the air around them. “Home,” she manages, and then collapses against Henry’s side.

 

He lifts her up very carefully, a bit unsteady on his own feet after hanging in midair for so long. They’re back in Emma’s quarters, in the inner chambers just outside the bedroom, and Emma lifts Queen Regina’s other side and helps sit lie down on the couch. Queen Regina mumbles something inaudible and curls into Henry’s side, and he blinks back fresh tears and sits immobile at the edge of the sofa, his hand resting on hers. 

 

“She’ll be fine,” Emma says, perching beside him. She twists Queen Regina’s hair absentmindedly between her fingers, quiet tenderness in her gaze. “She’s never used that much at once, I think. Her training was just enough for her to escape from the White Kingdom, and she’s never had much opportunity to use her magic since.” 

 

“She would be feared by the whole kingdom if they knew,” Henry says, staring down at his queen. Even in slumber, there’s something inimitable about her, a strength that has nothing to do with magic or her status or power.

 

“Probably,” Emma acknowledges. “But I think...as much as Regina claims she wants to be feared…” She brushes a fond kiss to the top of Queen Regina’s head. “Her kingdom chose to love her just as much as they might fear her. And she wouldn’t give that up.” Queen Regina groans out something that sounds sarcastic. “Go to sleep, Your Majesty,” Emma murmurs into her hair, bright with love. Queen Regina grumbles, but her body relaxes against Henry’s, her fingers tangling with his.

 

Henry stares down at her, still in quiet disbelief at  _ all  _ of this, at Queen Regina who’d sapped all her energy to save him, at mattering to Queen Regina at all. “I…” He chews on his lip. “How did you find Rumplestiltskin?” 

 

“His great flaw was always that he underestimates Regina,” Emma says, grinning. “She’s pretty badass.” 

 

“And you,” Henry says, and Emma looks at him in surprise. “You went against a magic user with a  _ gun _ , Emma. You’re pretty badass, too.” 

 

“I didn’t do anything,” Emma corrects him. “I just...played backup. This is Regina’s…” She waves her hand around helplessly, shrugging. “... _ thing _ ,” she finishes lamely. 

 

Henry stares at her, at her downcast eyes and shoulders hunched together, and he doesn’t understand how one person can be so brave and unaware of it. “It wasn’t just a bet, was it?” he says, his brow furrowing. “All the pretending to be weak and stupid. It wasn’t just about the wager.” 

 

“Weak and stupid.” Emma barks out a laugh. “Thanks, Henry. You always know how to put things into perspective.” 

 

“You’re  _ not _ ,” he says, frowning at her. “I know you’re not. But you’ve been pretty comfortable with people thinking the worst of you all this time. My friends– they don’t even believe you fought off the assassins on your own. Most of them have heard about what happened on the staircase and they still think you’re here to humiliate Queen Regina.” Even after everything, he still can’t think to call Queen Regina by her name. There’s still a piece of him that yearns for  _ Mother _ , and to strip away her title would be to acknowledge that it’s never going to happen. 

 

Emma leans against the back of the couch, edging away from Queen Regina. “They think I’m an idiot and a coward,” she says, and a shadow crosses her face. “That I’m anything but a queen. Henry, they’re not  _ wrong _ . I can’t pretend to meet their expectations when I  _ won’t _ .” She twists her hands together, always full of nervous energy that’s rarely contained. “I’m not like Regina. I’m not a  _ queen _ . No one fears me. No one loves me.” 

 

“That’s not true,” Henry blurts out instantly, instinctively, and Emma looks at him with wide eyes glittering with unspoken emotion. He flushes. “They would all...I mean, anyone who knows you…” He stumbles over the words. “You deserve all of it, too. You’d be...you’d be a really good queen if you let yourself be.” 

 

“You have no idea what I deserve.” And now Emma’s eyes are glimmering with real tears, tears Henry understands as little as he does the stricken look on her face. “Henry,  _ fuck _ , there’s something I have to tell you. I didn’t know how to–”

There’s a rapping at the door, and Emma jolts up, her mouth snapping shut. Henry stares at her, still uncomprehending, and Marian says, “Sorry to bother you, but we’ve just had sightings of Rumplestiltskin near the castle wall.” 

 

Emma straightens, suddenly alert. “Coming or going?” 

 

“Coming,” Marian says, glancing over to where Queen Regina is still curled up against Henry with that unearthly pallor. “We’ll take care of it.” 

 

“I’m coming with you,” Emma says grimly, holstering her pistol. She pauses at the door, turns to where Henry is struggling to disentangle his hand from Queen Regina’s. “Stay with her,” she instructs him, and there’s a little line of concern between her eyes that he obeys at once. She wets her lips, almost nervous. “We’ll talk later, yeah?” 

 

“Yeah,” he echoes, still confused, and he settles down for a silent vigil as the door closes behind him.

 

* * *

 

Violet pokes her head in a half hour after Emma leaves and smiles warmly at him, her eyes flickering to Queen Regina.  _ Should we…?  _ she mouths, gesturing to the door to the bedroom. Henry lifts a shoulder, afraid to jostle Queen Regina too much. Violet’s around his age, neither of them the sort of guard or attendant who should be taking point on handling the queen.

 

Violet smiles again and returns with a blanket and a pillow that she manages to squeeze under Queen Regina’s head. “For her neck,” she whispers, and her hand slides over the queen’s brow without ever touching her skin, soft and affectionate. She touches Henry’s shoulder and leaves with a final smile, pretty and kind.

 

“You’re blushing,” comes the amused murmur from beside him, and Henry nearly jumps. He stares down at Queen Regina’s upturned face, her eyes drifting closed again. 

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says haughtily, and Queen Regina’s lips curve into a smile. 

 

“You should get some sleep, Henry,” she says, more of a mumble than an order. “You’ve had a long night.” She shifts in an attempt to nudge him from the sofa but fails, her breath evening out before she can pull herself up.

 

He dares to reach over and slide tangled hair from her face, brushing a tentative kiss to her forehead. “Sleep well–” he starts, and his throat catches on  _ Mother _ , can’t release it but can’t suppress it, either. “–My Queen,” he finally finishes, because that’s an eternal reality for him, regardless of their past or future.

 

She’s small in sleep, had been small when she’d held him after she’d saved him. Sometimes now, when he burrows through his memories in search of the ones that  _ matter _ , he can remember being held in her arms, a tiny child with a true mother. But he thinks he’s only inventing stories, fiction to hold onto so he has something.

 

There had been other encounters, ones he can remember that had been something else entirely. Queen Regina had seen his regiment off to battle, had supervised their departure as she never had any other regiment before then. He’d known she was going to the front lines as well, and he’d attributed it to that.

 

He remembers being eleven or twelve and burrowed in a corner of the library when the queen had swept in to speak with Belle. He’d watched her wide-eyed as she’d begun, sharp and angry about something that she hadn’t clarified, and then he’d sneezed. Queen Regina’s head had swung around and her eyes had slid right over him, but her voice had softened when she’d begun to reprimand Belle again.

 

There are a dozen incidents over the years like that, what he’d thought was only his success at hiding when he’d eavesdropped on war meetings and ballroom affairs. Queen Regina had never noticed him, he’d thought, and he’d been comfortable as a fly on the wall, admiring her from afar. He’d once sneaked into a dinner for a foreign dignitary, determined to get one of the elaborate desserts that Cook hadn’t allowed him to taste, and Queen Regina had exited the room with hers and stepped into the side room where he’d been hiding. She’d stood there in silence for a moment, her face dark with an expression that he hadn’t thought to name when he’d been terrified of being found, and then she’d exited the room again, leaving her dessert untouched on the table with a little spoon.

 

He’d been afraid to touch it then, had thought it sacrilegious to steal from the queen herself, and the dessert had remained there until the servers had cleared it after the meal. He’d never thought that it had been meant for him, but now he wonders. Cook had prepared one for him a few days later, a special treat for his birthday, and he’d never thought of the queen’s dessert again.

 

He shakes his head. He’s too old for this second-guessing, for ascribing new meaning to their every encounter. What matters is  _ now _ , this delicate beginning to something new; and the Queen Regina who would risk her life and drain herself so completely to save him. And now she sleeps beside him, trusting and comfortable, and he can hardly believe that any of this is real.

 

He dozes off sometime during the night, slumping to the floor against the side of the couch with his head resting against Queen Regina’s pillow, and when he wakes up in the morning, he’s sprawled across the floor with another of Violet’s pillows under his head and a blanket over him. It’s already light out and Emma had never returned last night. He frowns, rising and walking into her room and opening the passage door, but she isn’t in there.

 

He keeps walking. After a few minutes he wonders why he’s walking in this direction– why he’s walking through this passageway at all. His brow furrows and he tries to turn around, but his feet continue moving forward at the same pace.

 

Something is very wrong. He attempts to twist, to stop his feet from moving, but his body isn’t obeying him. He opens his mouth to shout something– a warning, an echoing sound through the walls of the castle that might alert  _ someone _ – but his voice won’t emerge. He just keeps walking, steadily and calmly, as the rest of him feels close to exploding with terror.

 

He stops suddenly and turns, long before the passage opens to Queen Regina’s chambers. Instead, his hands fiddle at a catch in the wall and another passage slides open, this one to Queen Cora’s long-abandoned quarters. 

 

“Hello again,” Baron Rumplestiltskin says, smiling thinly at him. He’s holding something red and pulsing in his hands.  _ A heart _ .  _ Henry’s  _ heart, Henry knows at once. He’s heard stories of Queen Cora controlling people through their hearts. It had been why she’d been known as the Queen of Hearts. And apparently, she’d learned it from the best. Rumplestiltskin squeezes Henry’s heart and Henry chokes, feeling his chest clench and compress. “You didn’t think I was done with you, did you?”

 

* * *

 

Queen Cora’s quarters have been untouched since her banishment. There had been rumors that Zelena uses them from time to time, but Zelena is guarded in special chambers now and won’t be entering these rooms anytime soon. Henry had expected…potions on the night table, perhaps. Sophisticated torture devices hanging from the wall. Still-beating hearts lined up in the dressers.

 

But instead, it’s all puffy pinks and faux-sweetness, frilly and harmless and false, and the only still-beating heart in the room is resting in Rumplestiltskin’s palm. “Queen Regina is still drained from last night,” Rumplestiltskin gloats. “Her hapless wife is rushing about waving a sword as though she knows how to use it. No one will know you’re gone, your mothers least of all.” 

 

“Stop calling them that,” Henry says, sick at the thought of Rumplestiltskin being the first one to refer to them as his mothers. He’s surprised that he still  _ can  _ speak, with the baron holding his heart in his hand. “They’re  _ not _ –” 

 

“Aren’t they, though?” Rumplestiltskin says sleekly. Henry glares at him, struggling to move without any luck. “I remember you toddling after the young princess in the courtyard, the darling of the castle. Cora was furious. She would have been even more furious, had she known…” He sniffs delicately. “Well, never mind that.” 

 

“Never mind what?” Henry repeats, and he wants to glare at Rumplestiltskin and dismiss everything he says, but for a voice deep down that is suddenly aflame with curiosity. 

 

“Never mind your past, dearie, when you have such a bright future ahead of you,” Rumplestiltskin purrs. “Imagine that a whole kingdom has their eyes on your mothers. No.  _ Two. _ ” He waves his hand carelessly. “Two mothers. Two kingdoms.” 

 

_ His mothers _ . Henry clings to them, to staying focused enough to hear Rumplestiltskin’s plans for them. “And imagine,” Rumplestiltskin murmurs. “Imagine how it will look to the White Kingdom when Queen Regina’s darling prince kills their queen.” His fingers grip Henry’s heart harder, and Henry gasps out in disbelief. “War will certainly break out. The White Kingdom knows of the treatment of their lost princess. And King David will surely avenge his wife by attacking Regina.”

 

“You’re mad,” Henry croaks, finding his voice amidst the pain in his chest and the disbelief in his heart. “I’d never–”

 

“I think you would,” Rumplestiltskin says softly, and he raises the heart in his hand. “Go to the courtyard,” he orders, and Henry’s legs are moving immediately, toward the door. “Wait for Snow White. Tell no one your mission. And when Queen Snow takes her daily walk, in plain sight of half the palace, you will drive a sword into her heart.”

 

“No,” Henry whispers. It’s the only thing he can say that he wants to, an impotent whimper as Rumplestiltskin watches him go. “No, no, no.” 

 

But he’s propelled onward, out of Queen Cora’s former quarters and down, down, down to Queen Snow’s doom.

 

* * *

 

Hansel is in the courtyard, training with a dozen other guards who look coolly at him and don’t say anything. Henry’s never been more relieved to be an outcast among his former brothers and sisters, relieved to not hear whatever twisted excuses Rumplestiltskin’s orders will conjure. He can feel nausea rising within him, bile in his throat as he leans against the door and waits.

 

He wishes, for the first time in a long time, that he’d never shouted at Emma in the first place in this courtyard. He wishes he’d never been elevated to her lieutenant, that none of this had ever happened leading to this moment. Maybe he’d have never known the truth about Queen Regina, maybe he’d have never known her or Emma, but–

 

–He’s about to fuck everything up. He sucks in a shaky breath and tries not to throw up. 

 

His eyes are moving and he has no control over it, scanning the courtyard and pausing on the entrance to the castle, where one of the honor guard for Queen Snow has stepped outside. She looks around, cataloguing every face in the crowd and glancing up at the wall for anyone suspicious, and then she nods to two guards and gestures for them to search the gardens with her. Henry is sick, waiting for the inevitable.

 

It happens. Another two guards step forward, their gazes sliding right over Henry, and Queen Snow comes into view. Henry can feel his feet propelling him forward, and he feels as though he’s in a daze, as though he’s seeing everything through the eyes of someone else. Queen Snow turns, her eyes alighting on him, and she smiles warmly. “Henry,” she says, moving forward–  _ don’t come any closer, don’t do it, don’t _ – “Does this mean Emma’s in the gardens today?” she says, almost hopefully, and Henry draws his sword and plunges it at her chest.

 

In the part of him that isn’t quite conscious that this is  _ him _ , that this is what he’s doing, he sees the courtyard fall silent; sees a dozen guards draw their swords and freeze, their eyes grim with horror. Six months ago, all these guards had been at war with Queen Snow’s kingdom. As much as they hate Emma, her presence here– Queen Snow’s presence here– had meant  _ peace _ , and every guard in the courtyard knows that that peace is about to be forever destroyed with the downthrust of a blade.

 

And then another blade stops him, clumsy but strong. “It does,” Emma says, and heaves with enough strength that Henry stumbles backward. Her eyes are sharp as she studies Henry’s face, drives him back again, and Henry watches blankly and wonders, in an echoing chamber where he still has conscious thoughts, at how they have the same stare. “We thought this might have happened,” Emma says grimly, and no, it isn’t the same stare, Emma’s eyes are so kind even now. “That asshole took your heart, didn’t he?” 

 

He isn’t capable of nodding. Instead, his body surges forward, swinging his sword as though he has Mulan’s skill. Emma parries, breathing hard. She’s  _ fast _ , a lot faster than he remembers, and her blows don’t have much finesse but still land hard.  _ Of course _ . Everything about Emma before now had been about living down to expectations, and carefully letting slippery barons believe that she’d be no match for them.

 

The guards around them are frozen in place, watching the battle with increasing unease. Henry can see the glances they dart to Emma, the tension that ends in relief each time she blocks him. This is the first time the guard has ever been rooting for  _ Emma _ , and she moves a little faster with the weight of their expectations, a little more agile as she battles him. “I know you’d never have left Regina willingly,” Emma pants, slamming her sword down like an axe. Henry’s hands deflect the blow, but he can feel the way it strains at his wrists. “Don’t worry. I have this under control.” She flashes a grin at Henry and that distant part of him wants to sob. 

 

There’s a voice reverberating within him, whispering toxic promises through the nodes and canals of his mind and heart.  _ Kill Queen Snow _ . Then, more pervasive,  _ Kill Queen Emma _ . Henry’s whole body seizes up at that for a moment, a blessed moment of resistance that’s enough for Emma to knock him to the ground.  _ She abandoned you to me _ , the voice purrs.  _ She doesn’t love you. Hate her for it _ . It’s Rumplestiltskin’s voice, sly and dark and making very little sense.  _ Strike her. Avenge your years alone. Destroy– _

 

His sword hand jerks forward and slices across Emma’s face, leaving a bleeding line behind. A dozen guards move forward, swords out, and Emma throws up a hand. They freeze at her command. “Henry,” Emma says, still calm. There’s an air of authority to her now, a confidence that he’s never seen from her before. Maybe she’s just trying to reassure him, but it has even the guards standing around them attentive, their hands on the hilts of their swords but no one interfering. “I’ve got you, okay? It’s going to be okay.” 

 

_ Hate her for it _ , comes Rumplestiltskin’s voice again, whispering commands through Henry’s heart.  _ Strike her down _ . He slams his sword at Emma’s with renewed strength, and Emma twists and ducks, uses his weight to send him crashing to the ground again. Henry’s feet slide out from under him, unbidden, and smash into Emma’s knees. She wobbles.

 

“Your Majesty–” It’s Mulan, her eyes flashing with concern as she steps forward from behind Henry. 

 

Emma straightens, her eyes dark and set like the steel that Queen Regina excels at. “Am I not your queen?” she demands, and there’s a set to her jaw, like she doesn’t know what the answer will be. 

 

Mulan gives her a sour look. “If Henry is being controlled by forces trying to– to sabotage the peace treaty–” 

 

“I made this treaty once,” Emma says grimly. “I’m going to protect it.” Henry swings his sword again, nicking Emma’s arm as she parries him off.  _ Kill her _ , comes Rumplestiltskin’s voice, more urgent than before.  _ Kill her, kill her now, kill her NOW– _ And as she twists out of his way, he raises his sword and slashes downward in a blur, faster than should be humanly possible.

 

The sword is wrenched from his hand. He can see it in an instant– blood, blood everywhere, Emma’s eyes narrowed with pain and her lips set in a thin line as she struggles not to cry out. The distant part of him can’t be distant anymore, surges to the forefront in shock and horror, and he can’t  _ move _ , he can’t–

 

Warmth floods him at once. Rumplestiltskin’s voice is gone, and there’s only a murmur.  _ You’re free. You’re free,  _ Queen Regina’s voice whispers in his heart, and his hands are his own again to lurch forward, to blink away the blood and see–

 

Emma, her fingers wrapped around the blade of the sword, blood still dripping from her hand. She flips it into the air, catching it by the hilt and grimacing only a little, and she looks hard at him and then says, “Henry?” 

 

“I’m okay,” he says, stumbling to her. His heart has been put down somewhere that feels safe, but he feels it like a loss. “I’m okay. You’re bleeding.” 

 

But she’s already shifted away, her uninjured hand reaching to squeeze his arm as she holds the sword upright and turns to face the guards. Her back is straight, no sign of her usual slouch, and her eyes are tired but determined. She looks like a  _ knight _ , Henry thinks, like a weary warrior returned from battle to save her people, and there is no murmuring in the courtyard anymore while she stands there.

 

Mulan rests her hand on the hilt of her sword and inclines her head with rueful acceptance. Around her, every guard follows her lead, hand on sword and head bowed in respect. Henry ducks his head, too, even as he feels Emma’s fingers brittle and suddenly uncertain against his skin.

 

A new hush falls over the gathering, even more silent than silence, and Henry looks up to see Queen Regina gliding across the courtyard with her own guard around her. Her face is still lined with exhaustion, but her eyes are at peace. Two guards hurry to bring out an ornate chair for her to sit in, and she does so with perfect composure, her eyes flickering only briefly to Emma’s sword hand. 

 

Emma drops one hand from Henry’s arm and the other from where it raises the sword, and she walks slowly to the queen’s chair. Every eye in the courtyard is on them, Henry’s fellow guards gripped in wonder and disbelief as Emma kneels before Queen Regina, laying Henry’s sword across her lap. “My Queen,” she murmurs.

 

“My Queen,” Queen Regina says back, her voice even but for the fierce pride that hovers just beneath the surface. The guards breathe like a wind rustling through the trees after a thunderstorm. Emma rises, brushing her knuckles along Queen Regina’s cheek, a light, bare touch. “Baron Rumplestiltskin is dead,” Queen Regina says, a simple statement that rings through the courtyard. 

 

“Good,” Emma says, and she shifts to move to Queen Regina’s side and find Henry’s gaze, but someone is between them. Henry bites his lip, watching as Queen Snow steps forward to her daughter. He’d nearly forgotten that she’d been there, so caught up had he been in Emma’s performance. 

 

The three queens stare at each other, Queen Regina motionless as Queen Snow turns to her, and there’s an intake of breath around the courtyard as Queen Snow drops to a kneel in front of them both. “You saved our kingdoms,” she says, and she stares up at Queen Regina in wonder. 

 

Queen Regina looks almost uncomfortable under the weight of Queen Snow’s adulation, but she only inclines her head with grace. “We all have much healing to do to strengthen the bonds between us,” she says, and it’s more of a gesture of peace than had been terse handshakes and false cheek kisses during the treaty and wedding. Queen Snow nods, her eyes very soft.

 

Queen Snow turns slightly, still kneeling, to Emma. “You saved my life,” she says, and she sounds as uncertain as Emma in that moment, as unsure that she is loved as Emma has always been. 

 

Henry can see Emma’s intake of breath, all but invisible to the other guards as she gazes down at her mother. The others are certainly focused on their queens as Emma turns away for a moment, sparing a vulnerable look meant only for her wife, and Queen Regina smiles gently at her.

 

Emma steps forward, bends to draw her mother to her feet, and Queen Snow is tearful as she stands. Her hands come forward to cup Emma’s cheeks, her lips at Emma’s forehead, and they stand together for a long, long time.

 

Mulan clears her throat. “Why are you all standing around being useless?” she demands, her glare cutting like steel through the silence of the courtyard. “You have drills to review. Go!” The guards scatter, returning to their proper places as Emma and Queen Snow remain together, Queen Snow murmuring unknowable words against Emma’s skin. Henry sees Emma’s shoulders shake and knows she’s crying, hidden beneath her mother’s embrace. 

 

She doesn’t need to hide anymore, he’s sure of it. The guards are smiling, an odd sort of confidence in their movements now, as though something has been set to rights in the kingdom. Rumplestiltskin is gone and Emma has arrived, a queen worthy of their respect at last.

 

A hand lands on Henry’s shoulder, and her jerks and turns to see Queen Regina beside him, her eyes as gentle as she looks at him as they’d been for Emma. “Come,” she says. “I believe I have something that belongs to you.”

 

* * *

 

Henry’s heart is in a carved box in Queen Regina’s inner rooms, guarded by Marian and half of her guards. Queen Regina ushers them all out, walking with Marian for a moment before she dismisses her. They speak in quiet tones and Henry hears Emma’s name, hears Queen Snow’s, and Marian kisses Queen Regina’s cheek when they’re done and says, “Then all is well.” 

 

“Indeed,” Queen Regina says, but when she looks back to Henry, her eyes are still heavy with loss.

 

Loss of  _ him _ , Henry knows, and he swallows and ducks his head as Queen Regina takes his heart from the box. Again, warmth floods him, and he ventures, “Does it...is it supposed to feel different when…” He doesn’t know how to ask the question, and falls silent.

 

“When it’s someone who loves you,” Queen Regina says softly, and she presses his heart over his breastplate and into his chest, sinking it back in place without another word.

 

A torrent of emotions return to him at once, and he lets out a sob, overcome with every heightened experience of the past day at once. Queen Regina squeezes his shoulders, his arms, looking almost helpless as he drops his head and sways in place. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, and her own head falls, her forehead to his. “I never meant for you to...to suffer for being my…” She hesitates, her hands still resting on his arms.

 

“Your son,” he chokes out,  _ your son _ burning deep in his newly returned heart, and when he can finally stand straight again, it’s to turn to the door that he’d heard creak moments before.

 

Emma leans comfortably against the door, her eyes still wet and gleaming as she watches them, and Queen Regina uncurls her hand from Henry to go to her, to kiss her deeply and then kiss her cheek where she can whisper quiet comfort into her ear. Emma’s hands move to press against Queen Regina’s back, holding her as though clinging to her for support. Queen Regina rests her head to Emma’s shoulder and closes her eyes, and Henry averts his gaze. Emma catches it before he can look away, and she watches him solemnly and holds out a hand.

 

There is something yet untold, something between them that Emma hadn’t revealed but Rumplestiltskin had threatened to. He can’t imagine what it is, but it seems to mean very little right now. He will know someday, whatever it is, and he trusts Emma enough to wait for it.  _ Your mothers _ , he thinks again of Rumplestiltskin’s casual label, and it still makes him shake with faith in the two women beside him. 

 

These are his queens. Perhaps more, but never less than that. And he reaches for Emma as Queen Regina curls into her side and stretches out her own hand, reaches for both of them and is pulled into this fragile circle of  _ family _ , unbroken at last.

 

* * *

 

He returns to the guard a little later, even though Queen Regina protests his departure. “You’re meant to be a  _ prince _ , not a lowly guard–” she starts, and Emma catches his alarmed stare and says, “Let’s not scare him off all at once, My Queen.” She doesn’t seem much for the affectations that spill from Queen Regina’s lips so easily, but she says  _ My Queen _ like a caress, like a revelation that takes her with awe each time it’s spoken. 

 

Henry nods vigorously, his eyes very wide. Queen Regina grumbles, “Well, at least a higher-ranked official than a  _ lieutenant _ .” 

 

“And let him be demeaned for your favor like a boy in the schoolyard?” Emma says, gently mocking, and Queen Regina scowls until Emma kisses the expression from her face. Henry averts his eyes, contemplating escaping while they’re distracted. “He will be who he wishes to be. Neither of us were ever so lucky.”

 

When Queen Regina pulls away from her, her eyes are so soft that Henry’s cheeks burn even more than they had at the kiss. “We are who we need to be,” she says, and her hand tangles in Emma’s hair, her thumb stroking the tiara that Emma reluctantly wears. 

 

Emma stares at her, suddenly somber as the veneer of regality fades away. “Are you sure you wouldn’t want a queen’s consort instead?” she says, almost plaintively. “A peasant girl with no history who would be a useless fop with a pretty face?” She flashes a peasant girl’s grin, empty and casual but with too much darkness lurking beneath it for it to be convincing. 

 

“No,” Queen Regina says flatly, her fingers still in Emma’s hair. “I want you.” 

 

“Ah,” Emma says, and she sits very quietly, watching Queen Regina with wide eyes as Henry slips from the room. 

 

The barracks have never felt like home to a boy who’d grown up in library alcoves and passages above the throne room, but now they feel even more alien. When he steps in, the mood is light and several of his compatriots make a beeline for him, demanding more detail about his encounter with Rumplestiltskin. He’s the center of attention, the guard hanging onto his every word, but he finds that it makes him antsy and anxious instead of gratified. 

 

It’s just...he’s grown accustomed to quiet rooms with barely-touched sofas, to the murmurs of attendants and watchful guards, to his queens seated with him as though he’s a part of their makeshift family. He doesn’t want to be a  _ prince _ , no more than Emma wants to be a queen, but he misses his almost-mothers when he’s sitting cross-legged in the barracks with his equals, so sharply that he can think of little else.

 

“It’s going to be okay, isn’t it?” Gretel says when he finally escapes the crowd and settles down with his friends. He can see the shine in her face, mirrored in the faces of all the other guards around them. “Queen Emma saved the kingdom. I thought–” 

 

“We all thought,” one of the older guards says dryly, but he’s smiling, at peace. “Queen Regina would never have chosen an idiot to rule beside her.” There’s a murmur of assent, and Henry notices  _ have chosen  _ more than he does anything else that had been said. With each passing day, the narrative of their queens has shifted ever more, and trust has been earned at last.

 

“A toast,” Hansel says, producing a bottle, and more spirits appear, the guard bright and ready to celebrate. “To Rumplestiltskin’s head on a platter.” 

 

There’s an appreciative laugh, rippling through the room. “To Queen Snow kneeling before Queen Regina,” Gretel offers, and glasses clink and drinks are downed. 

  
“To our queens!” someone else says, and it’s echoed, over and over again through the barracks with rising confidence.  _ To our queens, to our queens _ , and Henry shouts it with the rest and swallows down his drink, long and buoyant as the cheers continue.  _ To our queens! To our queens! _


	8. Epilogue: Before

“‘I hope to return in the coming days to celebrate your seventeenth birthday,’” Zelena reads, and makes a face. “What a loving brother. To help pick out a husband for you, he means. Some stodgy baron from a distant land who will pour riches into our coffers for the hand of Princess Regina.” She’s never made any secret of her distaste for Regina’s older half-brothers, Daddy’s sons from before Mother. They’ve never made any secret of their distaste for Mother’s bastard daughter, either, though they dote on Regina from afar.

 

Regina scowls at her, indignant from where she’s curled up beside her sister on the couch. “I will not wed some  _ stodgy baron _ . Daddy always said–” 

 

“Daddy’s  _ dead _ ,” Zelena says, and it’s not without a trace of sorrow. She hadn’t been his daughter, but Regina knows that he’d treated her with more kindness than Mother ever had. “Mother will do whatever she wants with us, you know that.”

 

Regina shrugs moodily. “I’m a third heir. A  _ daughter _ . I can do whatever I want.” She crumples up the letter from her older brother and tosses it onto the desk. It’s all for show, anyway. She barely knows either of her brothers, has been cooped up in the palace for most of her life as Mother has put her on display as the charming, meaningless princess. Last she’d heard, both brothers had been off on  _ adventure _ , which had been enough for her to resent them both. She’s never been so fortunate.

 

“What’s gotten into you?” Zelena says, tucking Regina’s hair behind her ear so she can examine her face with concern. “You’ve been in a foul mood for weeks.” 

 

Regina glares at her. “I  _ haven’t _ . I’m fine.”  _ I’m fine, I’m fine _ , a litany she’s grown accustomed to since her father had passed away and Mother had been fully unleashed. She’d been adapting at first, and then– It’s felt even less honest with each passing day, and she refuses to consider why her mood has worsened. A lack of company, perhaps, though she can’t say who it is she lacks for.

 

“Fine,” Zelena says huffily. “I’ll let you be  _ fine _ alone, then, since that’s clearly what you want.” But she touches Regina’s hand before she leaves, belying her concern, and looks back at her with furrowed brow as she ducks from the room. 

 

Regina looks down, regretting Zelena’s departure already. Her quarters feel too large now, too empty without anyone within them, and she drags her feet as she wanders into her bedroom, contemplating an afternoon nap. Mother will be furious if she misses dinner. It isn’t worth Mother’s wrath, but she’s just so–

 

She looks up, feeling eyes on her, and sees a face in the window. 

 

It’s a good thing that she’d learned silence a long time before, or she might’ve screamed. Instead, she unlatches the window and yanks the bedraggled girl perched on the sill inside, pushing her to the floor. “What were you  _ thinking _ ?” she hisses, shutting the window before the rain can get in. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” The girl looks up at her sheepishly, and Regina runs her fingers through the girl’s wet hair, pulls off her soaking coat, and finds a blanket to wrap her in. “And where the hell have you been? It’s been weeks! Months! Have you eaten anything?” 

 

“Yesterday,” the girl says, wrinkling her brow in an effort to remember. “I’ve been on the run.” 

 

“On the run?” Regina darts into the next room to find the platter still left from breakfast. She’s never been so glad that Mother makes pointed comments if she does more than pick at it. There are fruits and cheeses and plenty of bread on it still, and Regina risks Mother’s wrath and drops them all into a satchel. “ _ Emma _ .” 

 

Emma winces. “It wasn’t my  _ fault _ ,” she protests. “I was traveling with this boy, and he stole from a baron and left me with the goods. What was I supposed to do, claim my innocence?” Regina remembers a half-dozen times when Emma had protested her innocence and been dragged, kicking and screaming, into the royal courts for judgment. There are enough guards quietly loyal to Regina who’ve made sure that Emma had never made it to the throne room to face Cora.

 

“I would have pardoned you,” Regina passes her the satchel. Emma practically swallows the bread and then takes a bite of a plum, closing her eyes in satisfaction as she licks her lips. Regina’s eyes follow Emma’s tongue, and she flushes and looks away. “And maybe then you’d stay here and out of trouble.”  _ Traveling with this boy,  _ Emma had said. Regina grimaces at the thought and Emma takes it as disapproval. 

 

“It’s not that I don’t  _ want  _ your mother breathing down my neck,” Emma says lightly. “The castle life just isn’t for me, you know that, Princess.” She doesn’t notice Regina’s flush. She bites down on the plum, a little harder this time, and when she pulls it away, there’s sticky juice on her chin. “You couldn’t have pardoned me this time. You wouldn’t have known I was locked up in some lord’s prison.” 

 

Regina wipes the juice from her chin, her hand lingering on Emma’s soft skin. “I would have known,” she says, and she doesn’t know  _ why  _ she believes it, but she’s certain.

 

“It’s okay,” Emma promises, even though it  _ isn’t _ . “I just need a few more months, then I don’t care what happens to me.” 

 

Regina looks at her askance. She’s  _ serious _ . And there’s a shred of shame on her face, a guilt that hints only at a deeper reason than simple pride why she hadn’t gone to Regina this time. “What’s wrong?” Regina says, her irritation fading, and Emma stands for the first time since she’d been pulled inside, ducking her head.

 

“It’s just...I want to make sure the kid is safe first, you know?” she says, rubbing her belly self-consciously. Regina stares at the swell below Emma’s hand, something catching in her throat. Emma looks embarrassed. “I know I fucked up, you can tell me–” 

 

“The boy,” Regina says blankly. “He–” 

 

Emma shrugs. “He’s gone. For good, I hope. I just...I don’t want my kid to live the same kind of life as I did. So I have to do that before I…” She bites her lip. “I didn’t know where else to go.” 

 

“You can always come here,” Regina says softly. “You know that.” She doesn’t know what she’s promising, but she means it, however Emma takes it. “Emma, let me talk to the baron. Repay your debts, whatever it takes. I’ll make it better.” 

 

“And I’ll...what? Leave you at the mercy of your mother?” Emma shakes her head, still so fiercely concerned for Regina even with the mess she’s made for herself. Regina’s heart strains and strains and strains in her chest. “I think not, Princess.” 

 

Regina seizes her hands, pleads, desperate only for Emma’s safety. “Let me make that choice.  _ Please _ . I can’t let you–”

 

Emma leans forward and kisses her, and Regina lets out an undignified squeak of surprise before she’s pulling Emma to her, breathless, her whole face warm as Emma shifts and she’s suddenly being pressed into the wall. “Emma–” she whispers, cradling Emma’s face in hers. Emma’s hands are on her waist, are holding her so gently that Regina thinks she might cry with  _ finally _ ,  _ desperately, yours _ – 

 

There had been dozens of times when Regina had ached for Emma’s kiss, had pulled her into embraces in dark corners of the castle and felt Emma’s breath graze her lips and wanted only to lose herself in a common thief who’d become her respite in her mother’s kingdom. There had been cool nights spent stumbling through the city, holding hands and leaning against each other and laughing breathlessly as Regina’s long-suffering guards had followed behind them, and she hadn’t wanted Emma to be  _ Marian  _ or  _ Zelena _ , she hadn’t wanted a best friend or a sister, she’d wanted–

 

_ This _ , Emma’s lips on hers, Emma’s eyes bright in the yellow light of early afternoon as though Regina herself is the one who’d lit up the room. Emma’s skin soft and shivering as Regina strokes her thumbs against Emma’s cheekbones.

 

Emma exhales, resting her head against Regina’s shoulder as her lips brush against Regina’s neck. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” she whispers, and her breath leaves goosebumps along Regina’s skin.

 

“About time,” Regina says, giddy as she kisses Emma’s temple, Emma’s hair, the tip of Emma’s nose. “I’ve been waiting for years.” 

 

“Years?” Emma echoes in disbelief. “What were you waiting for?” She lifts her head again, kissing Regina with extra force until Regina is panting and clinging to her and can’t remember the question for a moment.

 

When she does, she counters with, “What were  _ you _ ?” 

 

Emma laughs, but it’s self-deprecating and a little lost. “I’m a peasant,  _ Your Highness _ .” She only uses Regina’s title affectionately, usually, and never has it sounded like such a burden before. “You could do much better than me.” 

 

“I don’t  _ want _ – I’m a third heir,” Regina counters, and her hands drop to stroke Emma’s shoulders, to trail along the skin of her neck and lower. Emma sucks in a breath, her eyes drifting closed as Regina explores, watching what makes Emma’s breath hitch and what makes her hum with satisfaction. “I could run off with a peasant and the kingdom would be fine. I’ve  _ wanted  _ to run off with you for years,” she confesses, and her fingers reach Emma’s distended stomach and pause. Regina aches with want, for Emma and for a future she doesn’t dare imagine. “Emma,  _ stay _ .”

 

“I can’t,” Emma whispers. “You know I can’t. This castle is a prison, too.” Regina has said the same thing a dozen times, and she wants to protest now but can’t find the words. Emma kisses her again. “I can’t run forever.” It’s the first time Emma’s admitted that, and Regina is desperately hopeful, is ready to dream for the first time since her father’s death.

 

And then Emma says, “I’ll find you after, I swear. I’ll find you,” she promises again, and Regina wants to hold onto her forever, wants to kiss her again and again until they’re tangled on Regina’s bed and Emma won’t  _ leave _ , not again. Not for good. 

 

But instead, there are suddenly noises from the outer rooms of her quarters and then Marian’s voice, loud enough that they can hear it. “Your Majesty! Shall I retrieve Regina?” 

 

_ Mother.  _ She says, “That won’t be necessary,” and Regina grabs the satchel they’d left on the floor, pressing a finger to Emma’s lips. 

 

Emma nods to the window meaningfully and Regina hisses, “You are not scaling that again.  _ Idiot _ ,” and takes her hand, leading her across the room to her big bookcase. She pushes it to the side and unlatches the passage behind it, watching with satisfaction as Emma gapes, open-mouthed, at a secret she hadn’t known. “This will lead you to my father’s old quarters,” she breathes into Emma’s ear, pushing her forward. “ _ Go _ .” 

 

“Wait, Princess,” Emma whispers, her gaze pained, and she’s leaning in to kiss Regina again, quick but hard enough that it sets Regina’s stomach on fire. “I–” It’s Emma who’s flushing, for a change, searching for words and looking so utterly vulnerable as she fails to find them. 

 

Regina chokes back fear, helpless fury, longing, and presses her hands to Emma’s cheeks, memorizing the shape of her face when she looks at Regina with the same longing. “I walk in the Queen’s Garden every morning before breakfast,” Regina says rapidly, urgently. “Every morning, unattended by anyone but my most trusted guards. Please, Emma, I’ll be waiting–”

 

“Regina,” comes the sharp voice from the next room, and Regina slams the bookcase back into place and seizes a book, leaning against the wall and listening to the sound of retreating footsteps. 

 

Mother strides into the room, her eyes narrowing as she surveys it and settles on Regina. “What is this mess?” she demands, gesturing at the blanket still on the floor. “Have you no decorum?” 

 

“I was cold, Mother,” Regina says meekly. 

 

“This is no way for a queen to comport herself,” Mother says, her lip curling. “I see we have our work cut out for us.” 

 

“A queen?” Regina repeats, a chill passing through her. Zelena had been trying to warn her, perhaps, that a marriage had been in the cards.  _ No _ . She isn’t even seventeen yet, she can’t– what if Emma comes  _ back _ , what if Emma needs her– she can’t marry some elderly king looking for an easy alliance and a girl to warm his bed– “Mother–”

 

“There was an ambush in the north,” Mother says, businesslike. “A half-dozen ogres upon one hunting party. Both of your brothers were killed.” She sounds disinterested, as though she’s reporting the morning weather. “You are heir to this kingdom now.” 

 

A dreamlike haze has set upon Regina, a disbelief that transcends reality, and she stammers, “Wh-what?” 

 

Mother smiles, and Regina is dimly reminded of the shark mosaic in the courtyard. “You will be queen, my dear.” She looks around the room, her eyes lingering on the unlatched window and the bookcase where Regina is no longer nonchalantly leaning. “We must begin to make arrangements to move you to more appropriate quarters. Perhaps your father’s old apartments. Somewhere with fewer  _ distractions _ .” Her gaze falls to the blanket on the floor again, and Regina thinks of Emma hopelessly, bile in her throat where there’d been only giddiness before.

  
“Come, Regina,” Mother says, and she holds out a hand. Regina pulls away from the bookcase, straightening her shoulders and painting composure across her features like a mask as she takes Mother’s hand. “I have much to teach you.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your enthusiasm, for your feedback, and for making this such a ridiculously _fun_ experience throughout! I know most people were hoping for that one last reveal to happen to Henry in real-time, and I did write a version where he found out but I thought it was lacking. It's the kind of story that would consume all the other stories here, so I gift the hint of it only to the readers and will leave it to your imaginations how Henry and Emma's conversation goes. :) 
> 
> And now that we're done, I can gleefully shill these books to y'all like I do literally everyone I meet, bless. You can find them [here](http://www.meganwhalenturner.org/books/books.html), if you're interested! While I do borrow quite a bit from the books (and Book 3 in particular, though I strongly recommend reading them in order), you'll find them to be a very different read than the fic but equally if not more enjoyable! Enjoy how _ridiculously_ Swan Queen the characters are. :)
> 
> Thank you for reading! You can read more about how to support my writing [here!](http://coalitiongirl.tumblr.com/coffee) :)


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